Before I get to today’s post: this week, I announced my second book, Anna: The Biography, a biography of Anna Wintour based on interviews with more than 250 sources, including her closest collaborators and some of the biggest names in fashion. The book is out May 3, 2022, and you can pre-order it here. I’m excited to share more about it with you in this newsletter as publication nears. Please subscribe if you are new here for those updates and more important fashion and culture writing. Now, let’s talk about the Arnaults.
The Arnault Dynasty Is Everywhere
If you’re like me, you haven’t been able to stop thinking about various Arnaults lately.
Sure, every time you catch a glimpse of your luggage in the hall closet, you wish it had the look of something that cost ten to a hundred times as much. And then perhaps you entertain a brief fantasy of owning a stack of Louis Vuitton trunks, and then you can’t help but imagining Bernard Arnault sitting on top of them, like the Mad Hatter dangling his legs off a mushroom in Wonderland.
But this recent extra Arnault Googling is about something more. Specifically, it is about the recent ubiquity of select spawn of patriarch Bernard, the CEO and chairman of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton and one of the richest men in the world. (On some days he might be the richest, depending on how the markets are doing; Forbes’s must-Bookmark “The World’s Real-Time Billionaires” page has him ranked at number four as I write this.)
For me, the Googling started with Alexandre Arnault, executive vice president of product and communications of LVMH brand Tiffany, because he recently had a wedding in Venice attended by Beyoncé and Jay Z. Given this is 2021, an age when anyone who can spon-con their meaningful and emotional life events absolutely should, I’m assuming this was an opportunity to celebrate their love but really to promote Tiffany. Beyoncé and Jay Z are, of course, the new faces of Tiffany, one of LVMH’s more than 70 brands, and she wore a bunch of diamonds and a dress that might have looked more like Tiffany blue IRL. (They could also be great friends, what do I know? Maybe they FaceTime one another when they need casual advice on yachts and appearing in the Daily Mail.)
Only a frustratingly few photos of Alexandre’s wedding have slipped onto the internet. The bride, Géraldine Guyot, founder of accessories brand D’Estree, wore a really gorgeous floaty veil with her white Loewe dress that had long sleeves and a high neck and came in a fabric that, I’ll be honest, looks a little stiff.
But hey, she’s an Arnault now, and there’s nothing not-stiff about that, as Vanessa Friedman reminded us this week in her New York Times profile of 26-year-old Arnault boy wonder Frédéric.
Frédéric runs TAG Heuer and was apparently the brain behind hiring Ryan Gosling to be the brand’s spokesmodel, despite him not having an Instagram account, which is, by 2021 standards, the business decision of a lunatic. Frédéric dabbled in different childhood dreams like becoming architect, or perhaps an entrepreneur. But he’s an Arnault, and so there was only one childhood dream that was allowed. And that was, it seems, to be his father’s successor. But that’s, like, hard, right? Even the most privileged offspring in the world have to start somewhere, so why not as CEO of this watch brand that apparently has a golf watch and app for said golf watch?
See, Frédéric’s first-ever watch, he said, was a TAG Heuer “Aquaracer” which today costs $1,700, a lot considering it seems to only have a plain face instead of a replaying GIF of Michael Phelps. Reports Friedman:
From the start, Frédéric was being groomed to become the TAG Heuer C.E.O. His father “said report back when you think he’s ready,” said Stéphane Bianchi, who was brought in as TAG Heuer chief executive and head of the watch business not long after — in part to groom his successor. “And if you think he’ll never be ready, come back to me as well.” It was not, Mr. Bianchi acknowledged, the easiest transition.
Other salient facts about Frédéric from this story: he likes tennis, squash, golf, and kite-surfing. He described himself as “too young” to collect art. He’s a classical pianist:
“Music is like meditation. It allows me to focus on something else,” Frédéric told Friedman. Yet, responding to a question about what he does for fun, he did not say practice piano, but rather, “Business is fun!”
From the story:
“Ninety-five percent of the time, we talk about business,” Mr. Arnault said. “It was always like that. Growing up we talked about studies a lot, sport, music, politics, but business was still the main topic of discussion.”
Like his brothers and his father, he favors dark suits by Dior and often a turtleneck or open-neck shirt and sneakers. Plus a TAG Heuer. He rarely wears ties. Kim Jones, the artistic director of Dior Men, is one of his closer friends in the group. Often, Mr. Jones said, Mr. Arnault and his sons come en masse to see the collection and place their orders.
Every month or month and a half, all five children have official business lunches with their father. They limit the meetings to two hours because otherwise they could go on all day.
Well if these people don’t get the creative juices going, nothing will. And so, here’s a scene from a fictional pilot I’ll never finish writing called Arnaults Hommes at Dior Homme. Disclaimer: I am terrible at French.
Int. the Dior Men showroom. Everything is white except for the dark charcoal gray sitting furniture. Everything is severe. Kim Jones stands with one arm crossed and the other hand on his cheek. He is tense but attempting to pass it off to his staff as merely contemplative, gripped by genius fashion designer thoughts.
An assistant approaches Jones with an iPhone in each hand.
Assistant: Monsieur, Kim Kardashian DM’d, she says she wants to make a Skims x Fendi line of tight stuff, should I just say —
Kim Jones: Fine — no questions for Kim Jones right now!
Assistant: Monsieur, are you sure?
Kim Jones: Yes! I am expecting les Arnaults. Take your leave of me.
Assistant, backing away, head bowed: Monsieur.
A door opens; in walks Bernard Arnault, followed by his sons single file in order of height – Antoine, Alexandre, Jean, and Frédéric. All wear perfect dark suits; none have paid particular attention to their hair. Mr. Kim walks down the line and shakes each man’s hand. As soon as each hand is shaken, five waiter types in dark suits and dark shirts file in and stand next to each Arnault with a silver tray. Each Arnault casually empties his pockets onto his respective tray, like he’s going through security at the airport. Not that any of them are poor enough to know what that’s like.
Bernard: Mr. Jones, forgive us if the mood is tense, but we have just come from our monthly lunch and I have not been impressed. Perhaps you can do for me what my children cannot.
Kim Jones: Here you’ll find a rack of dark suits specially selected for you in that it is exactly the same as the last rack of suits from which you shopped. Hashtag businessmen!
Bernard, removing his jacket and draping it thoughtlessly over his waiter as though he is a freestanding coat rack: C’est parfait.
Kim Jones: Alexandre, congratulations on your wedding. I’m glad this wave of the pandemic didn’t force you to cancel it.
Alexandre: Merci. Being so wealthy, it is not something that interferes. A private plane to Venice is sealed from, what do you call it, like, plebeian particles, you see?
Kim Jones, secretly dying inside: Ah oui, oui.
Alexandre: Of course, we have not been able to ignore the pandemic entirely given our factories where workers who probably don’t earn a living wage are gathered together, but Papa says not to internalize that information so we’re not “lying” [makes air quotes] if the fashion press ever asks us about it. Not that they will because hashtag ADVERTISING, amiright? Ha ha ha!
Frédéric: Papa, that jacket looks divine. Mr. Jones, you are to suits what Chopin was to the piano étude.
Assistant, standing off to the side, under his breath: [Cough] Last time I checked Chopin didn’t collaborate with any Kardashians. [COUGH COUGH.]
Bernard: Frédéric, you should be spending less time regarding my elegance and more time finessing your Power Point slides. Be the Chopin of slides!
Frédéric bows head.
Jean, mouthing to Frédéric: Désolé.
Frédéric, whispering: Hey, Antoine, what am I doing wrong? I don’t need a CEO babysitter, I’m as entitled to my LVMH CEO job as you.
Antoine: You want my advice? Pitch him an idea. A good idea. Like — wedding spon con good.
Frédéric purses his lips, thinking; he takes his cell phone from the nearby silver tray and instinctively taps open Instagram. He double taps a Ryan Gosling “Hey Girl” meme from the account @YeOldeMemes – then he freezes.
Frédéric: Papa! I know the next face of Tag Heuer.
Bernard, raising eyebrows: Hm?
Frédéric holds his cell phone screen up to Bernard.
Bernard: Frédéric, I cannot be expected to recognize people who are neither descended from me nor in the top five on Forbes.com/real-time-billionaires.
Frédéric: I have a big idea, Papa. Picture it: a Tag Heuer watch, on the wrist of this man – Ryan Gosling – star of film and meme.
Bernard: If you want to put cheap watches on this man, be my guest. But son, I did not become “The Terminator” by forcing actors to talk about my products in Women’s Wear Daily. I did it by laying off 9,000 workers. And don’t you forget that.
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Being related to benard would be torture - break free, little frederico!