As the only remaining shopping haven in a mostly closed China, the tax-free island of Hainan has become the world's busiest sales point for luxury giants, even in the midst of the country's recent new wave of Covid-19.
Frenchman Alain Wertheimer - who lives in the US but chairs UK-registered Chanel Ltd's board and is the group's largest shareholder - juggles his trans-Atlantic lifestyle with help from US immigration services, which have granted him a notoriously difficult to obtain visa.
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François-Henri Pinault is making sure his travels don't show up on flight-tracking websites. The Kering CEO, who has owned a large-cabin private jet for two years, is keen to avoid the fate that befell Bernard Arnault, who was famously obliged to give up his own aircraft under pressure from plane-spotters tracking his movements.
French leather goods manufacturer Hermès and the Italian brand Armani have both been relying on the prominent Al-Mana merchant family to co-manage their shops and liaise with the relevant authorities during their Middle East expansion.
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Luxury giant LVMH's renovation works at Ecole Polytechnique's former campus are exposing divisions in Mayor Anne Hidalgo's majority at Paris City Hall. Green councillors have sided against their Socialist allies in the city government - and with the Communists and Les Républicains conservatives - in demanding a halt to the works and an audit of the project.
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Merch & Partners, the former distributor of Christian Dior perfumes in Qatar, has gone to the French courts to challenge the cancellation of its partnership by Dior and its Lebanese-Emirati partner group Chalhoub.
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The appointment of Chanel executive Bruno Pavlovsky as head of the French Haute Couture Federation, a few months after the group became British, is causing muted malaise within its governing bodies.
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The owners of celebrity haunts Ferdi and Lapérouse, two Paris restaurants that thrive on a high-profile fashion clientele, are working on expanding into the Middle East, just as the Michelin Guide develops its coverage of the region.
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