LVMH Arnault Vision Cools On 'L'Enfant Terrible' Designers

Bernard Arnault arrives with his wife to attend Pope Benedict XVI’s visit in the courtyard of the Elysee Palace September 12, 2008The recent Dior couture show didn’t go particularly well, writes Robin Givhan for NewsBeast. Dior Atelier director, Bill Gaytten, and his first assistant, Susanna Venegas, stepped out and gave the audience a wave. If haute couture is the concept car of the fashion business — a novel concept from Givhan — then Dior is in limbo until a new post-Galliano creative director takes charge.

Bernard Arnault appears to be not worried and is taking his time in strategizing Dior’s future.

His decisions carry enormous influence, and they are often imitated. He reordered the fashion universe in the 1990s when he hired New York’s downtown hipster Marc Jacobs at Louis Vuitton. Jacobs unleashed monogram handbags in colorful Takashi Murakami prints and Stephen Sprouse graffiti. The era of the “it” bag was born. Arnault brought Alexander McQueen to Givenchy, helping to propel him into the international fashion limelight.

And, of course, he hired Galliano and has not yet forgiven him for an “assault” on Dior with his behavior but also the fact that John Galliano hasn’t spoken one word to him.

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 | Phobe Philo @Celine

Images via Style.com

Arnault has been dazzled by Céline, a brand enjoying triple-digit growth, even in critical emerging markets like China where glitz continues to tantalize the nouveau riche. In 2010, Asia—excluding Japan— was the largest market for all LVMH products.

The chairman admits that his daughter Delphine is working at Dior, “but she wears Céline.”

Writing in early March Wanted at Dior | Super Creative, Low Drama, Confident Not Abrasive Designer Who Loves Women, I said:

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. 

It goes without saying that I would LOVE to see a woman designer at Dior, but I think Phoebe is a long-shot.

What Bernard Arnault doesn’t want right now is an arrogant “his highness” designer or a tortured soul. The world is in a fragile place, and there’s no room for drama queen creatives or tortured personalities.

Can one be creative and not full of drama?  Many people on this list prove that you can be.

Opening Ceremony @Kenzo

Earlier this week LVMH put a new design team in place at Kenzo. Designer Kenzo Takada retired in 1999, and the brand has continued under the design direction of Sardinian designer Antonio Marras since 2004.

Marras leaves a thriving business, with retail sales around the $1 billion mark (£630 million), with particular inroads made in the Chinese and Russian markets says Telegraph UK.

Carol Lim and Humbero LeonPierre-Yves Roussel, chairman and chief executive officer of LVMH’s fashion division, which includes the fashion houses Céline, Givenchy, Marc Jacobs, Loewe and Emilio Pucci, named Humberto Leon and Carol Lim, the dynamic New York duo behind American specialty store Opening Ceremony, as the new creative directors at Kenzo.

“They’re really embracing what was the origin of Kenzo — that Jungle spirit.”

Kenzo Takada’s landmark Jungle Jap boutique captivated Paris in the Seventies with its “joyful approach to ready-to-wear, injected with color, print and ethnic touches” writes WWD.

Kenzo Takada in first 1970 shop in Galerie Vivienne,Leon and Lim @Opening Ceremony have more “cool credibility” than almost anyone else in fashion at the moment. Again LVMH has tapped an American, reinforcing the buzz that Arnault likes the entrepreneurial, creative business spirits of Americans like Marc Jacobs.

Leon and Lim will present at the October 2011 Paris shows.

Antonio Marras Is Headed Where?

In dedicating his most recent Fall 2011 RTW Collection to Nannina, his mother, Antonio Marras built a collection inspired by passion, commitment and memory. Style.com writes:

Marras is the middle child of five. Maybe the fact that he looked up to his mother so much accounted for the lean, elongated silhouette, with the models perched on high, thick heels. The shape also chimed with the forties feel, the era when Nannina was at her most beautiful. So skirts fell to mid-calf, there was a strong emphasis on the waist, and the models wore seamed silk stockings. The bright red lips and hair pulled back into a loose bun were also borrowed from Nannina’s look. And the floral dress she wore the day she took her son to the movies for the first time was refracted through the roses and poppies that were printed on silk skirts and tops.

Reading about Antonio Marras, the Milan-based designer has an awful lot of shared sentiment with Givenchy creative director Riccardo Tisci, also a leading contender for Christian Dior. 

On my checklist to find designers who genuinely like women — as opposed to remaking women by their sometimes tyrannical rules — the LVMH creative pot just got a whole lot juicier. Anne

X-Kenzo designer Antonio Marras Fall 2011 RTW show