TAG HEUER AND PORSCHE

If you were looking for a getaway car from Paris Fashion Week, a Porsche Carrera would have been ideal, but the trio parked on Place Vendôme were celebrating Tag Heuer’s 50th anniversary.

It is now a collectible car, described by Tag Heuer chief executive officer Frédéric Arnault as a “sporty, performance-oriented car,” with iconic design codes such as white and blue, white and green, white and red, and the iconic Carrera stripe.

In honor of the occasion, the Swiss luxury watchmaker unveiled two limited-edition timepieces earlier that day. They are both blue Carrera chronographs reimagined in polished steel and rose gold, with runs of 500 and 250.

But back to Place Vendôme, where the Swiss watchmaker threw a party to celebrate the famous car’s five decades in style. No sooner had LVMH purchased, in May 2021 for a €10,000 tip, the Vendôme trademark registration from the Loir-et-Cher municipality, than jewelers Van Cleef & Arpels and Cartier, both subsidiaries of the Richemont group, filed a request for invalidity with the National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) in June 2021. In two decisions handed down this summer, the INPI ruled in their favor.

The choice of the Place Vendôme is strategic, and the LVMH group in this kind of manipulation will always end up winning, because Arnault is like a feline, he quietly awaits his prey.