Louis Vuitton Hikes U.S. Prices to Dodge Tariff Tantrums. In yet another dramatic plot twist in the luxury-meets-politics soap opera, Louis Vuitton has decided that your next handbag should come with a side of international trade policy. Analysts at Bernstein and Barclays report a 4% price increase on the brand’s U.S. website a polite, monogrammed way of saying “tariffs are not our thing.”
The timing, unsurprisingly, aligns with the latest 10% import duty served up by the Trump administration like a surprise bill at a five-star restaurant. But insiders whisper that Louis Vuitton likes to nudge prices around this time anyway, perhaps as a spring tradition like tulips, but with more cowhide.
Meanwhile, Japan saw a 3% rise and France a modest 2%, because apparently luxury inflation is also a world traveler. Continue reading
Do you like coffee as well a vodka? Do you like spending $50 on something you’ll regret from the first sip. Congratulations, Belvedere has literally distilled your dreams or nightmares into a single bottle. “The Belvedere Dirty Brew. Because yes, why settle for drinking an espresso and a vodka separately when you can combine the two and make your taste buds and your banker weep?
In 2024, Coty, the beauty giant and expert in bottling, luxury and ego, continued to bet on perfume as one would bet on a horse that has eaten Red Bull: with hope, confidence and a hint of panic. Fragrance is their engine for growth, their olfactory Elon Musk, their balance sheet booster.
Australian designer Aurelio Costarella has died at age 60 after a recent diagnosis with Creutzfeldt Jakob.Western Australia’s most successful designer, Perth-born a stalwart of the Australian Fashion Week schedule for a number of years.
Oyé oyé braves gens, listen to the news that has just broken, crisper than a lukewarm croissant on a Sunday morning! You see, our fashion mogul, the lord of the Arnaults himself, has decided to play fashion journalist, but with an announcement that’s… shall we say… unexpected!
Shudder fashionistas, Duran Lantink has just been crowned Jean Paul Gaultier’s new creative director. Yes, Lantink, the king of improbable cuts and recycled looks with the swag of an eco-fashion designer. And guess what? He’s become the very first official successor to Jean Paul himself. It’s a bit as if Gaultier had handed him the keys to the family dressing room and said: “Go on, son, have fun!
When the rich cough, the stock market catches a cold. Black Monday on the Champs-Élysées of the CAC 40: luxury giants stumbled on their crocodile moccasins. A blow for caviar lovers and six-figure watch wearers: the group owned by the lord emperor of overpriced bags and inaccessible champagnes has announced a drop in sales.
Welcome to the luxury western. It’s in Texas that the lord has set down his suitcases, or how to mess up a leather goods show with panache. So, fasten your seatbelts (made of cowhide vaguely tanned with plastic), because the “made in USA” luxury rodeo is in full collapse. The famous luxury house, apparently the empire of French refinement, had decided to plant its golden pumps… in the heart of the state near the Rio Grande. The result? A factory that looks more like a Monty Python sketch than a high-end craft workshop.
Attention, overworked New Yorkers, dehydrated models, and globe-trotting CEOs in desperate need of spiritual realignment: your salvation has arrived. And it smells like lavender hand-picked by aromatherapy-certified elves. This summer, Guerlain is gracing us with the grand opening of its largest spa ever inside the legendary (and recently zhuzhed-up) Waldorf Astoria New York. Yes, you read that right: a 30,000-square-foot wellness cathedral dedicated to inner glow, outer glow, and deep post-brunch hydration.
We know L.V as the luxury behemoth, capable of absorbing houses like a trophy collector. But this time, while everyone was waiting for The lord to pull off another coup, it was Prada that stole the show by buying Versace for the modest sum of 1.25 billion euros. A deal conducted with the finesse of a Milanese tailor, while LV, perhaps distracted by a vineyard acquisition or yet another flagship store on the Champs-Elysées, looked elsewhere.
Breaking news in the fashion world: Alexandre Vauthier, the maestro of glamour, has slammed the door on his own couture house! Just seven months after Revolve, the Californian online shopping giant, got its hands on his brand, the designer decided he’d had enough. Clearly, art and algorithms don’t mix well.
After raking in $4 billion with Skims (no big surprise), Kim Kardashian decided to relaunch her beauty empire because, of course, world domination wouldn’t be complete without a little contouring and a signature scent.
Chanel recruits friends of friends, and Matthieu Blazy is no exception. Freshly arrived as Chanel’s artistic director on April 1 (I thought it was an April fool’s joke?), he is already starting to set up his little kingdom. And as in any good fashion monarchy, you don’t choose your allies at random.
Not content with just your bag or wallet, the brand is now taking over your living room, too. From the iconic Louis Vuitton 1885 Bed Trunk (because who doesn’t need a fancy trunk to sleep on?) to the Hemingway Library Trunk designed by Gaston-Louis Vuitton in 1927 (because Ernest Hemingway obviously needed a portable library for his really long trips), the French luxury brand has been cozying up to the design world for quite some time. And now, they’re ready to turn your home into a monument to expensive taste.
It’s always the same story with the ‘Boring Karda’; a story as old as her own reflection in her vanity mirror. So there she is, decked out in sparkles worthy of a Mughal treasure (Mongolian suits her so well), criss-crossing Mumbai like an Instagram maharani to attend the wedding of a billionaire who pays the guests at the height of the Bimbo’s hips. Suddenly, disaster! A diamond vanishes into the crowd, and there she is in panic, what a tragedy! What a tragedy! Don’t diamonds last forever?
British tennis player Jack Draper has gone from being a friend of Burberry to an official member of its global family. In short, he’s moved from the couch to the living room.
Forget glass skin, the fad of yesteryear that made women’s faces look like freshly polished windscreens. Now it’s time for ‘butter skin’. an innovative concept that combines glamour with the essential need to look delicately buttery at any time of day.
Unfortunately, these monarchs in patent leather shoes don’t stop there. If your murderous pen bothers them, they’ll attack the most precious thing you have: your children. Yes, these virtuous merchants of dreams are turning into modern-day inquisitors, blacklisting your descendants from all the headhunting agencies and companies in their group. Guilty by descent, heretics by birth, condemned to professional exile even before their first CV.