A 14.5 Billion Dollar Engagement Ring: Why Tiffany Should Say "Yes" to LVMH

A 14.5 Billion Dollar Engagement Ring: Why Tiffany Should Say "Yes" to LVMH

On October 28, 2019, Tiffany & Co confirmed that it had received an unsolicited but non-binding offer from LVMH to purchase its securities at $ 120 per share , an offer of $ 14.5 billion. What are the six main reasons that can push LVMH to a transaction of this magnitude? What impact would this acquisition have on the financial structure of the French group? What about the fact that Tiffany & Co's board is asking for an increase in the offer?

Burberry Launches Econyl Sustainable Nylon Collection In Both Heritage + New Icons Designs

Burberry joins Prada’s June 2019 similar announcement of launching collections made with Econyl, the sustainable nylon yarn made from regenerated fishing nets, fabric scraps and industrial plastic.

The highlights of Burberry’s Econyl capsule include its heritage trench and lightweight classic car coat silhouettes, as well as what the brand is calling new icons, the logo-print oversized cape, fleece-lined puffer and reversible bomber jacket.

Burberry states that the introduction of the sustainable fashion collection is part of its plan to tackle what it calls an “environmental waste issue while creating a sustainable and versatile material” and is “just one example of the 50 disruptions Burberry is making throughout its supply chain to create a more circular fashion industry”.

Giulio Bonazzi, chief executive at Aquafil added: “We are delighted to collaborate with Burberry for this capsule collection. We believe innovative fibres like Econyl regenerated nylon are the future and are proud to support brands who use our yarns, transforming waste into incredible designs and raising the profile and possibilities of a more circular fashion system.”

Burberry’s Econyl collection is the latest innovative sustainable introduction, recently the fashion house collaborated with company 37.5 to use volcanic sand and waste coconut shell in thermoregulation technology for its quilted jackets, and it introduced Refibra, a new yarn produced by upcycling cotton leftovers from the Burberry Mill in Yorkshire, to make its dust bags for all jewellery and leather goods.

LVMH Takes Minority Position In Stella McCartney | Makes Stella Sustainability Adviser To Arnault

Stella McCartney is making front page news with the announcement that the designer, who abandoned her relationship with Kerring in 2018, has now joined forces with LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the world’s largest luxury group.

McCartney will remain in her role as her brand’s creative director and also as majority stockholder in the Stella McCartney business. Her additional responsibilities include becoming a special adviser to Bernard Arnault, LVMH’s chairman, and also to the LVMH board, on the topic of sustainability.

The fashion industry has an enormously negative and earth-harming footprint on the environment, and no one in fashion world is better prepared to fill this role of LVMH adviser on sustainability than Stella McCartney.

The addition of Stella McCartney’s voice and brand to the LVMH creative and leadership stable underscores the company’s commitment to gender equity. Since 2017, LVMH has named Maria Grazia Chiuri to head Dior and Claire Waight Keller to lead Givenchy. Arnaut has taken a minority position in the also sustainability-focused Gabriela Hearst, while creating a blockbuster disruption of the entire luxury industry with the creation of a new fashion house Fenty, created with Rihanna.

In talking about her new partnership, Stella McCartney said that since ending her partnership with LVMH rival Kerring, she had been pursued by many potential partners and investors wanting to help expand her business.

In the end, McCartney made a seemingly wise decision, one that gives her an opportunity to have heavy influence on issues that matter to her a great deal, while tapping into funding and a professional contacts base that will give her enormous flexibility. The importance of Stella’s access to Arnault and the LVMH board of directors can’t be understated.

“The chance to realize and accelerate the full potential of the brand alongside Mr. Arnault and as part of the LVMH family, while still holding the majority ownership in the business, was an opportunity that hugely excited me,” she said.

Prada Declares 2021 Sustainability Initiative Converting All Iconic Nylon Bags To Econyl

Prada Declares 2021 Sustainability Initiative Converting All Iconic Nylon Bags To Econyl

Even iconic products like Prada’s famous nylon bags need to advance to retain their original meaning, relevance, and status. Miuccia Prada is increasingly onboard with sustainability, giving up fur a month ago and now pledging to convert the “virgin nylon’ used in her famous bags to Econyl. a regenerated-nylon yarn that can be recycled an infinite number of times. The new fabric is made from reclaimed ocean plastics, fishing nets and textile fiber waste.

Rihanna Talks Being First Black Woman In Charge Of Major Luxury Fashion House For T Magazine June 2019

Rihanna Talks Being First Black Woman In Charge Of Major Luxury Fashion House For T Magazine June 2019

The New York Times T Magazine June 2019 previewed Rihanna’s now open FENTY Collection, produced with her business partner LVMH. Key FENTY looks are styled here by Suzanne Koller for images by Kristin-Lee Moolman. / Hair by Yusef Williams; makeup by Lauren Parsons

In this next act of Rihanna’s journey, the pop star becomes the first black woman in charge of a major luxury fashion house in Paris.

Rihanna is interviewed by Jeremy O. Harris, an American actor and playwright, known for his plays ‘Daddy’ and ‘Slave Play’. This is no ordinary, glossy interview. Harris writes:

“For three years, I have been a diligent student of Rihanna’s 2016 song “Work.” The first lesson it taught me was in the fine art of ubiquity: The omnipresent earworm hovered over casual intimacies, significant encounters, mundane journeys and made sense of itself wherever, in whatever crevices it chose. Then “Work” found its way into my own work. In my script for “Slave Play,” which debuted at New York Theater Workshop in 2018, the protagonist Kaneisha suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder and Rihanna’s “Work” plays in her head on repeat, taking on a frighteningly oppressive quality and revealing the historic bedrock I was attempting to excavate: namely, that black people, specifically women, must live with the knowledge that their emotional and physical labor is the backbone of every relationship that they endeavor to have with their partners, with America. The song, which weaves through the dialogue, brought more attention to the play than any other device could have. “

Chopard Extends Luxury Brand Sustainability Drive To Chloe Sevigny's Handbag Inspo

Chopard Extends Luxury Brand Sustainability Drive To Chloe Sevigny's Handbag Inspo

Swiss luxury jewelry and watchmaker Chopard has made another advancement in its commitment to sustainability with a handbag designed by award-winning actor Chloë Sevigny.

The geometrically-styled, highly-recognizable evening bag featuring a large heart overlapping the front and side panel, was inspired by “iconic images of the 1940s,” according to a Chopard release on Friday. The bag, sold in three colors, is made from calf-skin leather that is sustainably sourced and “fully traceable,” Chopard said.

For the Sevigny-designed “Green Carpet Collection” bag, which retails for $2,360, Chopard sought to not only trace the leather lineage, but also to work with the tannery on environmental management systems that ensure “all processes and resources, including water, waste, and energy were responsibility managed,” according to Green Carpet, sustainability expert Livia Firth’s Eco-Age. Reinforcement materials on the bag also are made from natural latex and vegetable tanned leather waste.

Prada Goes Fur Free In All Company Brands Starting With Spring 2020 Collections

Prada Goes Fur Free In All Company Brands Starting With Spring 2020 Collections

Italian luxury Prada is joining the ranks of fur-free luxury brands, announcing that all collections starting with women’s spring/summer 2020 will not use fur. Prada previously used fur from foxes, minks and rabbits in its luxury collections.

The decision comes after working closely with the Humane Society International, Fur Free Alliance, and Italian animal rights group LAV. Prada’s subsidiary Miu Miu is on the same fur-free spring 2020 timetable. Products that have already been produced will be sold.

Stella McCartney Wins 'FUR FREE FUR' Fake Fur Trademark Battle With USPTO→

Stella McCartney Wins 'FUR FREE FUR' Fake Fur Trademark Battle With USPTO

Call the case Stella McCartney vs the US Govt — and Stella won.

Stella McCartney is one of most most committed voices in the global sustainability moment. In a trademark case that was a bit esoteric for the USPTO, McCartney sought to trademark the concept ‘FUR FREE FUR’ and not a specific textile composition. Stella wanted a category of existing and future fabrics not even created to live under her proposed ‘FUR FREE FUR” trademark label.

Rihanna and LVMH Team UP With Potential To Create Dynamic, People-Centric, Global Luxury Brand

USA-France ambassador Jane D. Hartley, Rihanna, Bernard Arnault, and his wife Hélène Mercier at Christian Dior SS 2016 fashion show.

Rihanna and LVMH Team UP With Potential To Create Dynamic, People-Centric, Global Luxury Brand

Vanessa Friedman asks for The New York Times: “Is Rihanna the Coco Chanel of the 21st century?” Can the multi-hyphenate talent, without an ounce of fashion training, launch a new powerhouse luxury brand?

Bernard Arnault, chief executive of LVMH, thinks so and is in serious talks with Rihanna about launching a new global Fenty brand. Friedman writes that execs at Fenty Beauty and LVMH corporate were astonished over the runaway success of Fenty Beauty, launched in a diverse array of skin tones and with a fan base of 6.3 million Instagram followers. Fenty Beauty was named one of TIME magazine’s 25 Best Inventions of 2017.

Robyn Rihanna Fenty IS a real, live heritage brand with a global reach. No ‘authentic’ story must be created around her image. Rihanna IS the story and she has created it — not with mood boards on Madison Avenues — but with her entire life.

Rihanna comes to the world of luxury brands having made them her canvas for a decade. Luxury fashion has brought her far beyond the limits of the music world. Styled by Mel Ottenberg since 2011, Rihanna has aligned herself with emerging designers and luxury brands like Lanvin and Givenchy. Rather than working with a luxury house exclusively, she used these same brands to suit her purposes.

In 2014, she was named fashion icon of the year at the Council of Fashion Designers of America awards, where she appeared in a sheer crystal-spangled Adam Selman dress and matching cap, a white fur wrap strategically draped around her body, setting off a so-called naked trend in red carpet dressing. The next year, at the Met Gala, she wore a giant yellow cape from the Chinese designer Guo Pei, and enshrined her skill at making an entrance.

Not mentioned in Friedman’s piece, but a key component in the forthcoming Rihanna/LVMH alliance is the social conscience of the new luxury brand. Here there is an opportunity to set a very high bar, and all my instincts say that Rihanna and Arnault understand well global politics and human suffering.

RIHANNA AT THE COSTUME INSTITUTE GALA 2018. Image DAMON WINTER/THE NEW YORK TIMES

With governments in chaos worldwide, but Rihanna anchored deeply in the lives of everyday people, I fully expect a new paradigm to emerge with a Rihanna-led Fenty house that is an activist house, too. Rihanna is deeply embedded in the obligations that women leaders have assumed in creating real change in the world.

If LVMH is equally courageous and up to the task, we might see a new luxury brand DNA that moves beyond the rarified and exclusive vision of Coco Chanel to one that touches people in big and small ways worldwide. If anyone can jumpstart this new 21st century, luxury brand vision, it’s the combined prowess of Rihanna and LVMH’s Bernard Arnault.