Buzz: Marc Jacobs to Christian Dior? Phoebe Philo to Vuitton?

Marc Jacobs closing Louis Vuitton Fall 2011 ready-to-wear shows.Marc Jacobs Talking About Dior

It’s been quiet at LVMH Christian Dior — until this morning. Not all French executives are on vacation, when there’s a prime vacancy to fill the retail world.

WWD reports that LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault, Sidney Toledano, Dior’s chief executive officer, and Delphine Arnault, deputy managing director at Dior are meeting with Mac Jacobs and his longtime business partner Robert Duffy this week about a move to Dior.

Phoebe Philo at Louis Vuitton

The move — one we championed from day one — would leave the Louis Vuitton cash cow without its star designer, except or one important fact. Phoebe Philo, who has revved up Celine and is a favorite of Delphine Arnault, would move to Louis Vuitton.

As they say in American retail (the French are much too refined) KaPOW! 

Upping the ante further is the suggestion that Philo would continue her duties at Celine, given the synergies between the two brands — except for Marc Jacobs’s ready-to-wear vision. Toning down Louis Vuitton Phoebe Philo style would probably not hurt sales, given the global luxury move towards less flash and dash.

Reasons to Like Marc Jacobs at Christian Dior

The deal is hardly secured, but reasons why it could be good are:

1. Jacobs is as much a star as Galliano but works well with management.  Jacobs has experienced his own drug trouble, and love life disappointments, but seems to be a steady ship. We repeat: Jacobs works well with senior management. Call it American business pragmatism.

2. Dior is not in need of reinvention. The Jacobs gift for attracting outside talent and cool collaborations to Louis Vuitton could work at Dior.

3. Like Riccardo Tisci, Marc Jacobs is a man adored by Smart Sensuality women. If there’s an ounce of anti-female misogyny and hauteur in his mind, we’ve never heard about it. Jacobs relates well to women of all ages and body types. He has supported women in the size 0 stranglehold that the fashion industry has on women today.

4. Marc Jacobs at Christian Dior is an interesting foil to Chanel’s Karl Lagerfeld. Jacobs is a business visionary, like Karl Lagerfeld.

John Galliano, the former Dior designer whose downfall unleashed all these moves at LVMH, was not a business visionary or brand pragmatist. In today’s world the most talented designers also understand business.

LVMH’s Bernard Arnault

LVMH Arnault Vision Cools on’ L’Enfant Terrible’ Designers

Givhan writes that Arnault is studying Phoebe Philo and her lower-key, feminine style of doing business at Céline. Arnault likes Céline’s philosophy of incremental change, not topsy-turny innovation.

Rise of the Smart Sensuality Designers | Phoebe Philo @Celine

Bernard Arnault Maestro

Bernard Arnault: Exploring OUr Cultural Creatives Future

Bernard Arnault is France’s richest man and one of the most influential luxury tastemakers on Planet Earth.

Is Bernard Arnault a Cultural Creative? Hardly, and yet Arnault may be a luxury goods executive in transition — making him a Smart Sensuality guy.

Arnault confirms in this in-depth article on LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA, which includes high-end brands Louis Vuitton, Givenchy, Tag Heuer watches, Donna Karan, Fendi and Moët & Chandon champagne, and of Dior and other companies, that he’s involved in talks to invest in a fashion company with ecological and ethical goals founded by a global celebrity. Arnault declined to give details but says philanthropy is a growing focus of his company: ‘It gives people working at the group a feeling that they don’t exist only for cash flow, but for something bigger.’ (That company was Edun.)

Wanted at Dior

Wanted at Dior | Super Creative, Low Drama, Confident Not Abrasive Designer Who Loves Women

LVMH-owned Celine creative director Phoebe Philo is also on the list.

Philo doesn’t have the uber-intellectual pedigree of Riccardo Tisci. She’s more like Marc Jacobs with a strong vision of what women want to wear every day and an excellent eye for handbags and accessories.

Marc Jacobs & Women

Fall 2010 Collections | A MIghty Chink in Fashion’s Body Image Debate

Jacobs was thinking out loud this spring… giving us insights into the surreal double bind that women find themselves in … living in a hypersexualized atmosphere that loves to condemn experienced women. Jacobs embraced these Elizabeth Taylor sensual prototypes.

Modesty on the front; revelation on the back. 

The Jacobs models appear older and more mature, sophisticated . .. and then totally irreverent, flashing their backsides walking by. This is the mystery of an older, seasoned woman … one more in control of her own presentation and packaging.

Louis Vuitton Fall 2011 Campaign

Nyasha Maronhodze+ | Steven Meisel | Louis Vuitton Fall 2011 Campaign

Marc Jacobs talks about the making of the Fall 2011 campaign. I adore Jacobs and love Louis Vuitton. The idea behind the campaign is superb but I still don’t believe this cast of young fresh girls pulls it off — except for Nyasha Maronjodze, who is visually smashing. Anne

Louis Vuitton Fall 2011 Campaign

God Created Woman & Marc Jacobs to Look Over Them

On the Fall 2010 runway shows in Paris, designer Marc Jacobs the “American in Paris” and friend to women, ‘killed the cult of the super-skinny teenager in a micro-mini, as a barometer of 21st century style’  while bowing to Smart Sensuality style goddesses around the globe

“Designers are always saying they’re going to do a collection for women, but then every girl on the runway (catwalk) is under twenty,” Jacobs said backstage, possibly the only man in the world who can make the midi-skirt fashionable again. via Telegraph UK

Jacobs has teamed up with star-power photographer Steven Meisel, photographing Karen Elson, Christy Turlington, and Natalia Vodianova in Louis Vuitton’s Fall 2010 ad campaign.