The Fall ready-to-wear shows in Paris, the most important bazaar on the fashion calendar, were in full crush. At Dior, house of the very hot designer John Galliano, the props indicated that the young maestro had been thinking hard about a dreamland Orient. As the crowds tripped around the delicate bridge to nowhere on their way to find or steal seats, one conservatively dressed businessman waited quietly in the shadows. Galliano may get the attention, but, murmured Bernard Arnault, "I have all the fun."
He also has all the power. His control of the French conglomerate LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton has made him the king of luxury goods. Over the past decade or so, Arnault has put particular energy into high-end fashion, acquiring the houses of Dior, Christian Lacroix, Givenchy and Kenzo. If you've already made your first few billion, it is a dream kingdom. Lately, the irreverent Women's Wear Daily is calling him the Pope of Fashion.
Yet neither the French business community nor the fashion flock sees this pope as infallible. Arnault's American-style takeover battles have rankled France's conservative business cardinals. And his appointment of Brits to run Dior and Givenchy--not to mention his sacking of the revered Hubert de Givenchy, the man who immortalized Audrey Hepburn--shocked the French, who, with some justification, see their nation's fashion sense as chic in a way that cannot be duplicated by a couple of rostbifs.
John Galliano, 36, a cheeky Spaniard brought up in London, was the toast of the SoHo fashion scene but unknown on the Avenue Montaigne when he took over Givenchy two years ago. A year later, Arnault moved him to Dior and plucked Alexander McQueen--even cheekier and younger, at 27--to guide the fortunes of Givenchy. At Louis Vuitton, a maker of fancy luggage and handbags that dates to 1854, he has hired an American, the young sportswear designer Marc Jacobs, to create a line of bags and sportswear to take on the chic of Gucci and Prada. Jacobs should give Vuitton a high and profitable fashion profile--what he was hired to do--stepping into a company whose business is up 54% since it became part of LVMH. Last week Jacobs showed his own line of American classics with lots of cashmere and flannel--a sort of '90s Halston.
It is all a huge gamble. But Arnault, 48, savors this kind of contrariness like one of his champagnes. "I'm not interested in anything else but the youngest, the brightest and the very, very talented," he says. And the very, very profitable. Arnault has managed, and that is the word, to coax money from top-shelf businesses. Last year LVMH earned $649 million on sales of $5.4 billion. Says he: "I have always been interested in two things: the arts and business."
He is known as a tough boss; if he indulges the Gallianos on the creative side, he is whipping the production side, taking advantage of all the available back-room synergies in manufacturing and distribution. For instance, Lacroix's Bazar line is manufactured by Kenzo; Jungle, Kenzo's perfume, is made by the Givenchy factory; and Vuitton's first perfume is being concocted by Guerlain, another LVMH firm. The principle is to control costs rigorously, then spend a fortune on advertising.