Rihanna and LVMH stop by the Fenty Fashion House – WWD

Rihanna’s short incident with luxury fashion with LVMH Must Hennessy Louis Vuitton has come to a standstill, WWD has learned.

The music star and the French luxury giant have mutually agreed to wheel the Fenty country house less than two years after its launch.

The brand stopped posting on its Instagram account on January 1, and the latest collection from Fenty.com dates back to November 2020: shoes with nail heels in collaboration with one of Rihanna’s favorite shoe designers, Amina Muaddi. It is understood that the e-commerce website – the main distribution channel for Fenty fashions – will go dark in the next few weeks.

LVMH confirmed the development exclusively to WWD through a brief statement: “Rihanna and LVMH have jointly decided to discontinue the RTW activity, based in Europe, in anticipation of better conditions.”

According to sources, a skeleton staff remains at Fenty’s headquarters in Paris to end the remaining operations.

Meanwhile, LVMH is concentrating on Fenty Beauty and Fenty Skin – and getting involved in her successful lingerie business.

WWD has also learned that private equity giant L Catterton, in which LVMH has a stake, has led a $ 115 million B-fundraising round to mark the upcoming retail expansion of Savage x Fenty, Rihanna’s successful lingerie collection in 2018. with California was introduced. based TechStyle Fashion Group.

The fundraising round also received significant participation from existing investors such as Marcy Venture Partners and Avenir, as well as a number of new investors, including Sunley House Capital, the crossover fund of Advent International.

“Following the completion of a fundraising round in which L Catterton took a stake in Savage X Fenty, LVMH and Rihanna reaffirm their ambition to focus on the growth and long-term development of Fenty ecosystems focusing on cosmetics, skincare and underwear. , “LVMH and Rihanna added in a statement to WWD.

Late last year, Rihanna was reportedly looking for investors to expand Savage X Fenty to active clothing, which would conduct a selective process with Goldman Sachs.

Rihanna is said to be ‘sad’ because she has to put her Fenty fashion house on ice.

The fashion startup faced the coronavirus crisis, which founded the megastar in Los Angeles, which enabled her to be practical with Fenty Beauty and the launch of Fenty Skin in July last year, both in California, but alienated from the design and development teams in Paris and production sites in Italy. It was known that Rihanna jumped on a plane to visit important material suppliers and educate her on the production of garments.

Reportedly, Rihanna and LVMH have finally decided to ‘make priorities’ and focus on Fenty’s high-flying US-based ecosystem, with sources describing the launch of Fenty Skin as a ‘home run’. It is said that they also envisage other projects.

Market sources estimate that Fenty Skin achieved $ 30 million in sales in its e-store in less than four months. The brand debuted at Sephora locations this month, and is also available at Harvey Nichols and Boots in the UK

The Fenty fashion house is said to have enjoyed encouraging sales of glasses, shoes and denim, and has found initial foothold in department stores. But the challenges of creating eight tool collections a year and running a new business were too heavy.

The Instagram account for Fenty Fashion boasts 1 million followers versus 3.9 million for Savage x Fenty by Rihanna and 10.5 million for Fenty Beauty by Rihanna. Fenty Skin’s Instagram platform boasts north of 800,000 followers.

WWD announced in January 2019 that Rihanna, already a prodigy in color cosmetics in partnership with LVMH, would enter the fashion arena with her own brand after a time as Puma’s creative director.

LVMH, which was officially announced in May of that year, said that the Fenty House ‘will focus on Rihanna, which was developed by her, and is taking shape with her vision regarding rtw, shoes and accessories, including the brand and brand communication. ‘

It was the first time that LVMH – whose forefront is modernizing brands such as Dior, Louis Vuitton, Givenchy and Bulgari – has launched a fashion brand from scratch since setting up a couture house for Christian Lacroix in 1987. brought.

The project was also unpopular for a group known for lavish fashion shows and flashy advertising campaigns. While pop-up events have taken place in branded department stores such as Bergdorf Goodman and Galeries Lafayette Champs-Élysées, the launch of products has been quietly announced on Fenty fashion’s website and on social media.

Last fall, LVMH brought in a new managing director who was apparently ready to adjust the positioning of Rihanna’s luxury home. Bastien Renard, who worked for Nike in Europe and the US for 19 years, succeeded Véronique Gebel, a longtime Louis Vuitton CEO of his ready-made division who was hired for the launch. It is understood that Renard is managing the settlement and will take on a new task within LVMH.

LVMH indicated that Fenty was less than rosy when it announced its third quarter in October.

“As far as Fenty is concerned, of course we are still in an initial phase and we need to determine exactly what the right offer is. This is not something that is easy. We started all over again, ‘said then-CFO Jean-Jacques Guiony. ‘Obviously we have the great help of Rihanna on this, but I would say that it is still being determined what the offer will really be. We have successes, we have things that have worked less well, so we have to sort between the two and really decide what the core points of the offer should be in the coming years. ”

Rihanna Robyn Fenty holds the titles of Founder, CEO and Artistic Director of Fenty. Jean Baptiste Voisin, strategic head of LVMH, oversaw the launch of the luxury fashion house, whose current offering includes $ 300 hoodies to $ 900 gladiator sandals.

Most of Rihanna’s fashions, which are mainly sold online on Fenty.com through watch-now-buy-now drops, have tipped more towards the stylish and designer end of the spectrum.

It is understood that LVMH and Rihanna did not rule out taking a second turn in a luxury home in the future, encouraged by the fact that they were able to attract repeat customers, mostly professional women with a high value buying other luxury. trademarks.

Rihanna has shown a serious interest in and influence in fashion – along with formidable design chops and acute instincts – with her three-year career as creative director of Puma, which holds the German brand for active clothing with her Fenty at Puma project, and the next it is successful with beauty and lingerie – the former with LVMH-controlled Kendo.

Kendo, which functions as an incubator making products that are eventually sold through LVMH’s Sephora perfumery chain and other outposts, signed Rihanna in 2016. Her Fenty Beauty products reached $ 100 million in sales within a few weeks and were considered a tribute. a transforming brand.

Rihanna’s closeness to LVMH extends to at least 2015. After attending shows for Christian Dior, one of Arnault’s most precious fashion properties, she appears in ‘Secret Garden IV’, a campaign and short film shot by Steven Klein in Versailles. It presented her in the Dior sunglasses, with the suitcases of the brand and the look of the Esprit Dior collection.

A year later, she created a range of futuristic sunglasses in collaboration with Dior as part of her brand ambassadorship.

Rihanna’s talent and beauty have made her a favorite of fashion designers worldwide. The Barbados native has previously modeled for Gucci, Emporio Armani and Balmain.

She made her design debut in 2013 with the British main street River Island and created a collection of clothes and accessories.

See also:

Fenty Hires new managing director

Rihanna talks to Savage x Fenty’s Fall 2020 collection

How Rihanna built her fashion and beauty empire

LOOK: Inside Rihanna’s career in fashion