LVMH to launch new fashion Maison with Rihanna

What do 67 million Instagram followers, a chart topping music career and
beauty brand aimed at diversity give you? An LVMH-backed fashion brand if
your name is Rihanna.

In unconfirmed reports, yet widely publicised from trade publication WWD to
the New York Times, Robyn Rihanna Fenty is to have her own fashion Maison
named after her surname, Fenty, if sources are correct. The new house will
merge beauty, lingerie and fashion under one pillar, and likely
accessories, if Rihanna’s oversized Fenty spectacles worn last week were
the signal of a new partnership.

For LVMH to back a celebrity-fronted Maison is big news for several
reasons. The first, the company has not built a fashion house ‘from
scratch’ since the 1980s, which was the Christian Lacroix label. Lacroix
began as a couture house but later diversified into ready-to-wear, perfume
and a slew of licensing collections. It wasn’t a financial success, making
losses throughout the LVMH-owned years. Rihanna may have several
collections of lingerie and beauty under her hat, but in terms of output
and company structure, does not operate like other LVMH portfolio brands.

Not a trained designer

Second, Rihanna is no designer. Granted she is creative and has a vision
and one would assume possesses astute management skills, but she is neither
a tailor, designer or stylist by trade. Put Rihanna in a room with a sketch
pad and pencil and you are not likely to see the birth of a collection
along the calibre of John Galliano, Phoebe Philo or Alber Elbaz. The latter
two being unemployed without any association to a large fashion house.

This brings to the fore the power of celebrity and those 67 million
instagram followers. A designer background, as we all know, is largely
irrelevant. LVMH has the financial and operational prowess to make all the
loose angles come together because it knows a Maison with Rihanna as its
face will shift product.

The first luxury brand headed by a woman of colour

Thirdly, Rihanna will be LMVH’s first brand headed by a woman of colour.
After the appointment of Virgil Abloh at Louis Vuitton, the pool of
designers fronting luxury companies goes beyond the Central Saint Martins
and Parson School of Design archetypes. Inclusivity and diversity are
slowly creeping into traditional and heritage brands as they acknowledge
the power has shifted to the mindset of the consumer.

While Rihanna has previously been the face of Dior, a creative director of
Puma, and associated with a host of other fashion campaigns, she has never
been affiliated with just one brand. This has been her strength, because
she hasn’t served fashion, rather it has served her.

Let’s see if a new fashion empire will emerge.

Photo credit: Rihanna Fenty, source Fenty Beauty website