Dorchester Collection

Plaza Athénée offers luxury concierge services to Avenue Montaigne residents

Owned by the Sultante of Brunei's Dorchester Group, the luxury Parisian establishment is providing a wide range of services for those who stay in the city's Golden Triangle, whether they live there year-round or are merely passing through.

Name recognition

Olympia Le-Tan wins a round against her former partners

The designer has scored an initial victory against her previous associates, with whom she is embroiled in a protracted legal battle. But she did not emerge from court entirely unscathed.

Hermès affair

When Éric Freymond invested LVMH funds with Bernard Madoff

The questioning this summer of LVMH veteran Jean-Jacques Guiony by the judge investigating Nicolas Puech’s missing Hermès shares threw up some new revelations. The former CFO of Bernard Arnault’s group addressed among other things LVMH's links with the principal suspect in the Hermès affair, Éric Freymond.

Spotlight | Puig

Business is good for Catalan beauty giant in Russia

The Puig group, which just acquired ISDIN for more than a billion euros, can count on a low-profile growth market: Russia. Glitz has gained access to the results of its Moscow-based subsidiary, whose sales and profits have soared since the start of the war in Ukraine, all in the utmost secrecy.

Cosmetics

Chanel seeks to expose two-timing retailers

Having discovered that its products are being sold outside its exclusive distribution network, the luxury fashion house is trying to track down the suppliers who have been selling its merchandise on the grey market. Its investigations should soon bear fruit thanks to a recent court ruling.

Fashion Week

Lucien Pagès takes charge of influencer Lyas’s watch parties

Designed to make fashion more accessible, the watch party concept pioneered by Elias Medini is now being overseen by the PR agency Lucien Pagès.

Banque de France

Land registry oddity complicates sale of Bd Saint-Germain mansions

The Banque de France has just put two mansions on the chic Paris boulevard on the market: the Varengeville and Amelot de Gournay properties, which house a Latin American diplomatic and cultural centre. But the complicating factor is that their extensive gardens extend onto neighbouring properties.

Missing Hermès shares

Luxembourg courts asked to look into investments of Éric Freymond’s widow

Though the Swiss wealth manager tended to plough his clients’ money into phantom funds, he invested his own wealth into tried-and-tested financial vehicles. One of them is now questioning where these funds came from, implying that his widow may have benefited from Freymond's dubious dealings.

Arnault family

Bernard Arnault’s nephew Ludovic Watine launches his own investment firm

Aevum Capital will add another string to the bow of Watine, who is also an art dealer and sits on the supervisory board of Agache, one of the Arnault family’s holding companies.

Spotlight | LVMH

Jean Arnault’s gambles on taking LVMH watch brands upmarket

Appointed in the spring to run LVMH’s watch division (except for Tag Heuer), Bernard Arnault’s youngest son has hatched a strategy to target the ultra-luxury end of the market. The guinea pig looks like being Zenith, the smallest of the watch brands.

Kering

Alexander McQueen temporarily deserts the world’s fashion capitals

Despite an expensive extension in 2023, McQueen’s biggest flagship of all, located in Paris’s Rue Saint-Honoré, closed down this summer with barely a murmur. In Milan, London and New York, it’s the same story as the ailing Kering label beats a retreat on every front.

Max Mara

Italian ready-to-wear giant plunges into AI after quiet test run

Max Mara plans to replace models, photographers and stylists with artificial intelligence for much of the imagery accompanying its next autumn-winter collection, keeping humans only for its main campaign. This is a radical decision that is shaking up the brand’s entire ecosystem of suppliers.

Bettencourt Meyers family

How L’Oréal’s founding family manages its billion-euro dividends

The Bettencourt Meyers family gets over €1bn a year from its nearly 35% stake in the cosmetics giant. These sums stay on the accounts of the dynasty's family office, following a model also used by other major French luxury families.

Estée Lauder

Sued for inflating its figures in China, Estée Lauder survives… thanks to China

Three years after being dragged down by China, Estée Lauder is bouncing back thanks to its sales there. Its annual report shows the US luxury beauty giant has placed its fate in the hands of the very market that nearly brought it down, even as legal proceedings are still ongoing.

Louis Vuitton

Legal tussle with Molly Tea forces early shop closures in China

LVMH's flagship brand won its case against Molly Tea, which it had accused of copying its floral logo, but its lawsuit against the Chinese brand sparked a backlash. Chinese consumers are boycotting Louis Vuitton such an extent that the French brand has had to close shops in China ahead of schedule.

Tricks of the trade

'Fake discount' court case could impact luxury houses

A US court is set to rule on the legality of a common method of luring consumers: crossing out one price and displaying a second, lower figure to misleadlingly suggest that a product is on sale.

Watchmakers

Richemont follows Chopard and Breitling in streamlining its Swiss watchmaking operations

Gino's dream

Family of legendary watch retailer Serge Cukrowicz keeps F.P. Journe board seat

Spotlight

Puig shuns fashion to turn its luxury houses into perfume showcases

The Catalan beauty giant is preparing to wind down Nina Ricci’s heavily loss-making fashion business. The move fits a group strategy in which catwalk shows serve only to give its fragrances visibility.

Kering

Top execs showered with performance-related shares despite falling share price

Kering’s chief operating officer Jean-Marc Duplaix and its former deputy CEO Francesca Bellettini received substantially increased performance bonuses this year.

Focus | Comme des Garçons

The dark side of the avant-garde at Dover Street Market Paris

The concept store and incubator founded by the Japanese fashion label Comme des Garçons is in difficult financial straits. Though it has set fashion trends for two decades, the group’s French subsidiary has lost over €17m in the last two financial years. To keep its head above water, its founders Rei Kawakubo and Adrian Joffe have been cutting costs as well as staff.

LVMH

Jean Arnault recruits Audemars Piguet's ex-CEO for Hublot

While mulling a drastic reduction in production at Zenith, Bernard Arnault’s youngest son, who heads up LVMH’s watch division, has brought an industry heavyweight on board at the luxury watchmaker Hublot. The rationale behind this recruitment is the subject of much speculation in-house.

Bourse de Commerce

Producer of film celebrating Kering founder François Pinault goes into liquidation

Belvédère Productions, Serge Moati’s production company, was recently wound up. Pinault was one of its shareholders, and the company had produced a flattering documentary about him.

Christie's

Pinaults poach design supremo from Sotheby's

The billionaire French family, who are the main shareholders in Christie's through their family office Artémis, deployed their considerable network of contacts to recruit the rival auction house’s head of design. This segment of the auction market is growing rapidly.

Full circle

Ex-CEO of Audemars Piguet teams up with… its ex-ambassador

François-Henry Bennahmias, the former boss of the high-end Swiss watchmaker who now works as an investor, has joined the wealth management outfit of a double Olympic champion who used to be the company's ambassador.

Rothschild family

Wine is next challenge for Arianne de Rothschild’s new LVMH hire

In addition to turning the ailing Parfums Caron around, Laurent Boillot, recruited a few weeks ago from LVMH by the family office of the Swiss branch of the Rothschilds, will also have to tackle the family’s debt-riddled wineries in France and Spain.