Arnault’s Richemont Play, Hailey Bieber’s Pop-Up & The Row’s New Look

Hi, and welcome to Line Sheet. I’m in Milan, on the last leg of this European tour. Excited to see you. If we missed each other in Paris, don’t worry, there’s always September. I’ll be back tomorrow with a readout from the couture shows and much more. (A few days of gathering intel over here will feed this email for months.) Today, though, I’ve got the requisite LVMH chatter—the Arnault family’s new stake in Richemont, daddy’s Bloomberg Businessweek cover—a reader-requested analysis of Revolve’s acquisition of Alexandre Vauthier, and a Very Important Take on the fakest of fake trends. And Rachel Strugatz is back with an update on Rhode. Mentioned in this issue: Richemont, Bernard Arnault, LVMH, Johann Rupert, Brad Stone, Rhode, Angelina Rascouet, the Olympics, Revolve, Alexandre Vauthier, Pia Baroncini, The Row, Brian Molloy, dresses over jeans, Giorgio Armani, Ralph Lauren, Chanel, Hermès, Tiffany, and many more.

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Wednesday Notes

Rhode rules: In a sea of meaningless brand activations, Rhode proves that there’s still room for viral consumer engagement. Hailey Bieber’s beauty brand opened a pop-up in Soho this week, in case you missed the copious social media posts, and about 1,000 people showed up before the store even opened to buy the new “Pocket Blush,” lip glosses, and matching phone cases to hold these new glosses. (There were also lines around the block Tuesday and Wednesday morning.)Apparently, the brave souls who waited in line for hours for blush—“Sprinkle,” a surprise seventh shade, is only available at the pop-up, after all––are also extremely entitled. I heard the crowd was miffed that Bieber herself wasn’t at the pop-up Monday taking selfies with them, which seems a tad unfair. Bieber did host an influencer and media event at the store Sunday night, which feels sufficient given that she’s very pregnant and New York City is sweltering under a “heat dome.” Anyway, I heard blush sales (both online and in-store) far exceeded expectations, and you know what that means. We’ll be seeing more of this pop-up, similar to the Rhode photo booth that’s traveled to Coachella, Miami, etcetera. —Rachel Strugatz
Why did Revolve acquire Alexandre Vauthier, a Parisian couturier?: Revolve, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange, is the Los Angeles-based seller of both midpriced (through its namesake site) and high-end (through FWRD) fashion. The group, which is probably best-known for its occasionally controversial influencer trips to Coachella, has had a lot of success launching influencer lines off of its main platform—including L.P.A., designed by Pia Baroncini.Not long ago, I had a conversation about its recent majority investment in Vauthier, which was just announced yesterday. It sounds like Revolve, which has always operated slightly outside the fashion ecosystem, is interested in expanding Vauthier’s offering while capitalizing on its standing as a formidable designer brand in France. Revolve is also capitalizing on an opportunity to acquire an upscale label for a song. Alexandre Vauthier, himself, is a quiet designer. He’s not big in editorial, but he has a business built on sexy evening wear. (Nathalie Pavlovsky, the former Chanel executive and wife of Bruno Pavlovsky, played a role in the strategy.) Like many small, independent fashion brands, however, Vauthier has struggled to turn a profit. Earlier this year, the company entered administration, the European version of bankruptcy protection. I’m betting that there is plenty of overlap between the clientele for Vauthier and Revolve. Also, Raissa Gerona, Revolve’s chief brand officer, is very smart, and co-C.E.O.s Michael Mente and Mike Karanikolas have managed to keep generating profits despite the challenges of being a wholesaler. The market sniffed at this announcement—the stock bumped up slightly—as the deal will have a modest impact on the business, especially to start. But I still think it’s interesting.
Skirts over pants!: People can’t stop talking about The Row’s recently released Spring 2025 lookbook, styled by the really very good Brian Molloy, and especially the skirt-over-pants image, which I initially thought was a composition of Phoebe Philo separates rearranged for a magazine. (The sweater is very similar to one she released in her first drop.)Why is it hitting so hard? Well, for one, there is a familiarity to the styling that feels extremely close to what people are wearing on the street (for the last two years, as one person noted to me at the Sacai show on Sunday). It made it feel quite inclusive, like we’re all in on the joke. As for whether Molloy’s skirts-over-pants look is a thing, I’m doubtful. It never really spread widely in 2004, and it’s unlikely that it will now. (For me, skirt-over-pants is forever a fake trend: talked about incessantly, rarely deployed.) More important than that semi-stunt, however, is the Olsens’ overall approach to composing a collection. The industry’s obsession with this lookbook explains exactly what makes The Row so great: Their talent lies in perfecting the banal.

Okay, and now a few notes on fashion’s first family…

Arnault Family Values

News and notes on the Arnaults’ Richemont investment and the paterfamilias’ magazine treatment.

LAUREN SHERMAN

Yesterday, Bloomberg reported that Bernard Arnault made a small investment in Richemont, the Swiss luxury group that owns Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels, as well as fashion brands including Chloé and Alaïa. The stake was casually positioned as a simple case of family-office portfolio diversification. Of course, we all know that’s not what this is, and that releasing this information was a signal to the broader market that LVMH is interested in further conquest-style acquisitions at a gargantuan level.Arnault has long admired Cartier, the Chanel of hard luxury, and its €10 billion in annual revenue. And while he’s making slow-but-undeniable progress with Tiffany in the U.S., there’s no reason he wouldn’t want to absorb its archrival, even if it potentially attracts regulatory scrutiny. After all, this is the man who owns both Dior and Louis Vuitton. I’m sure he would own Hermès and Chanel if their controlling families would ever contemplate sales. (They won’t…)

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Given LVMH’s current focus on scaling already enormous brands, it seems unlikely that Arnault would want all of Richemont. I doubt, for instance, that he is interested in managing the British men’s heritage brand Dunhill. But Richemont founder Johann Rupert doesn’t have a successor in place. And LVMH remains a dignified and attractive (and capable) potential acquirer for many of these aging entrepreneurs, including Giorgio Armani, Ralph Lauren, and Diego Della Valle, who has a longstanding relationship with Arnault, or even Moncler’s Remo Ruffini, who is still pretty young. (The Bertellis, the family behind Prada, arguably have more options.) The Arnaults know this, of course, and I’m sure the family holding company, Financière Agache, now under the purview of second-youngest son, Frédéric, will continue making these types of practical investments and see what they open up. If nothing else, it’s schmuck insurance that will pay off if someone else swoops in.Also, given the sorry state of the market for physical luxury goods, and the undeniable, unsettling competitive advantage LVMH has gained over the past decade through aggressive, sizable acquisitions, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a major merger over the next year or two between those who want to fend off Arnault’s advances. But by that point, it may already be too late.

Cover Boy

The other bit of surprising-unsurprising Arnault news this week came in the form of the paterfamilias’ appearance on the cover of Bloomberg Businessweek. The profile is the centerpiece of the relaunch of the print magazine, now monthly under still-new editor-in-chief Brad Stone. (I’m chatting with Stone and his co-writer on the story, Angelina Rascouet, for Friday’s episode of Fashion People.)For the fashion professional, there’s really nothing new here besides the Richemont investment news. However, it’s worth reading as a refresher on Arnault’s extraordinary empire-building. It also includes a very pretty, easy-to-understand chart laying out the share each business has within the group. It’s a great companion piece to the LVMH episode of the Acquired podcast.

It’s interesting that Stone, a tech guy who rose to prominence via his book on Jeff Bezos and Amazon, chose Arnault as the magazine’s first cover subject. Of course, Arnault is one of the richest men in the world. (Currently the third-richest, according to both Bloomberg and Forbes.) However, he’s got a couple other things going for him. There’s the Olympics sponsorship, which he’s certainly eager to promote. It also gives a general interest business publication like Bloomberg Businessweek a way into covering a person and subject that could feel impenetrable otherwise.And, of course, Arnault is not a novice. While his relationship with the press has changed—he used to be far more forthcoming, even a bit of an instigator—he still reads voraciously, and has become more engaged in recent years, particularly since the acquisition of Tiffany. (Last year, he did three interviews about Tiffany and succession, first with The Wall Street Journal, and then The New York Times, as well as an outlet in France.) As for the succession plan, which is what everyone really wants to know about: Arnault once again indicated that he is not retiring anytime soon. The piece didn’t delve into the current executive restructuring underway, the current positioning of Delphine, and the trending kremlinology on the adult children. But I have it on good authority that Antoine is a big fan of Succession. Who isn’t, I suppose.

That’s it from Rachel and me. By the way, who was saying yesterday that they wanted Chanel to go to Jacquemus?Until tomorrow, Lauren

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