Last week, Beyonce and Jay Z were named the latest brand ambassadors for LVMH's jewelry company, Tiffany & Co.
The photogenic hip hop power couple were photographed serenely in black Givenchy and Balmain, posed in front of a rare Tiffany Blue Basquiat painting, with Beyonce sporting an equally rare Tiffany Diamond Necklace. Deemed priceless, the 128 ct gem (in two different versions) has only been worn by 4 women so far: Mary Whitehouse, Audrey Hepburn, Lady Gaga (at the 2019 Oscars) and now Beyoncé, the first black woman to do so.
With her bouffant hair and simple black dress, Beyonce gives an air of a modern Audrey Hepburn.
LVMH is betting on hip hop icons to remix classics, and pave the way to their fashionable future.
Bernard Arnault, Chairman of LVMH, and one of the richest men in the world, is a strategic thinker. His smart moves and business acumen have cemented his perch atop the world of style.
And while the fashion industry continues to wrestle with the thorny and sometimes uncomfortable topics of race, diversity, and inclusion, Arnault knows and sees the way forward. Embracing hip hop and pop stars who transcend race--whose music and sense of style appeal to the masses-- are part of his winning business plan.
In February, LVMH‘s Moët Hennesy announced a partnership with rapper-entrepreneur Shawn Carter aka Jay-Z, buying 50% of his Armand de Brignac brand.
In July, LVMH purchased a majority stake in Off White, the brainchild of Virgil Abloh, who is also the menswear designer of Louis Vuitton. Abloh, in an LVMH statement, said “This is an incredible new platform to take the disruption we’ve achieved together to a whole new level.”
Many fashion observers opined that this was a way for Arnault to 'lock' Abloh in to the LVMH family, leveraging his creativity to create continuous blockbuster years (in a Forbes article, LVMH announced revenues of $33.9 billion for the first half of 2021, up 56% compared to the same period in 2020, with much of the growth driven by fashion and leather goods, for which revenue rose from $9.4 billion in the first half of 2020, to $16.3 billion in the first half of 2021. Sales in the U.S. and Asia were “up sharply since the start of the year,” the company said, with Europe’s recovery from the pandemic more “gradual.”)
Aside from its investment in Abloh, acquiring Tiffany, and placing Beyonce and Jay Z as the faces of the brand, LVMH has also invested heavily in Rihanna's Fenty brand.
While her ready to wear line was put on hiatus, the rest of her business flourished, landing her on the Billionaire's list in early August, with the bulk of her fortune (an estimated $1.4 billion) coming from the value of Fenty Beauty, of which LVMH owns 50%.
It seems as if these partnerships are fruitful for all parties involved. The creatives receive support for their fashionable dreams become reality, while Arnault continues to reep significant returns.
Perhaps the fashion word is finally catching on to what we already knew: Hip Hop sets the trends that the world wants to follow. And now the artists are able to capitalize off of their creations. Appreciation and collaboration over appropriation is the new name of the game.
Images: Backgrid/Getty/Ravie B/Fenty
