How Will Rihanna'S New Brand FENTY Change The Definition Of Luxury?

The traditional rules of the luxury brands are crumbling, and there are signs that LVMH is deciding to "save their lives".

Last Friday, the social media queen, hip hop singer Rihanna and LVMH launched the luxury brand FENTY in Paris Lower Marais area for the first time, and released the first fashion series in the two week flash shop.

The series will be launched in May 29th in 14 countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, and will enter the Asian market at the end of the year.

"FENTY" is taken from Rihanna's full name Robyn Rihanna Fenty. Besides the women's wear series, it may also be involved in men's wear, children's wear, and even office supplies, technology products, home gardening and other fields in the future.

The first fashion line is simple, with the outline design and the waist waist as the symbolic design. It combines the shoulder pads with the high-profile pointed sandals to create the image of modern women, while the decoration of the flash shop is mainly based on the blue FENTY logo.

FENTY also claims that brands will not offer product discounts like Louis Vuitton.

Unlike Rihanna's previously launched beauty brand Fenty Beauty and lingerie brand Savage x Fenty, FENTY clearly positioned the brand as a high-end fashion house in Paris.

Rihanna holds 49.9%, LVMH holds 50.01%, Rihanna serves as the CEO and creative director of the brand, Veronique Gebel, as executive director, is responsible for managing daily business with Rihanna stylist Jahleel Weaver, and many of the employees of FENTY brand come from other brands of LVMH.

Before the official appearance of FENTY, the industry has paid great attention to this brand new luxury brand.

At all levels, FENTY has a breakthrough significance, and it is also a big bet under LVMH.

Fashion designers give way to star opinion leaders

After Rihanna announced the launch of FENTY, some analysts believe that the essence of FENTY is still selling star influence, while Rihanna simply extends the product range from beauty makeup and underwear to ready-made clothes.

Such a view actually underestimated the ambition of FENTY, and LVMH's emphasis on FENTY illustrates some problems.

LVMH has made a green light for FENTY at all levels.

On the one hand, FENTY is the second luxury brand launched by LVMH since its establishment of Christian Lacroix in 1987.

LVMH, known as the "takeover maniac" after Bernard Arnault's steering, focuses on business efficiency, and this luxury magnate is more interested in acquiring and developing mature brands than in developing new brands.

On the other hand, FENTY is also the first luxury brand launched by LVMH in collaboration with female stars. It is also the first luxury brand to appoint black women as creative director.

It is noteworthy that DIOR, the core brand of LVMH, was the only female creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri in the centenary of the brand in 2017.

The introduction of personal brand often represents the highest trust of luxury group in creative director.

Compared to the launch of personal brand for fashion designers, LVMH chooses to launch a personal brand for the strict sense of "layman" and singer Rihanna, which is worth pondering.

Even Nicolas Ghesqui re, who is the creative director of Louis Vuitton women's clothing since 2013, is the closest and most innovative designer to Louis Vuitton. After many media releases, the company's personal brand is still unsuccessful.

Last May, Nicolas Ghesqui re and Louis Vuitton renewed.

It is reported that the new contract includes the launch of a personal brand, and LVMH has agreed to provide funds for the creation of personal brands for its core brand Louis Vuitton women's creative director, but the release time is not yet clear.

In contrast, cooperation between LVMH and Rihanna is much faster.

In December 20th last year, LVMH injected 60 million euros into the Project Loud company founded by Rihanna, making preparations for the luxury brand launched by Rihanna, of which Rihanna invested 29 million 900 thousand euros and LVMH invested 30 million euros.

According to the news, the preparation of the brand began last year.

From time nodes, this is similar to the time node that Nicolas Ghesqui re renewed, but LVMH obviously deployed more group resources for FENTY, including sending Louis Vuitton and Celine team staff.

LVMH's relative prudence towards Nicolas Ghesqui re is in sharp contrast to the full support of Rihanna.

LVMH also sniffed the golden age of star creative director in the past, no longer willing to throw capital at designers with low return and risk.

In fact, LVMH has been launching personal brand practices for the group's creative director, including the Marc Jacobs from 1997 to 2013 for the Louis Vuitton.

At present, LVMH still owns the brand name of Marc Jacobs, but its performance has been in the doldrums in recent years, which has become the burden of LVMH's performance.

According to the analysis, LVMH has no longer attached importance to its personal brand when its creative director leaves his core brand, and the brand often starts to go downhill.

From 1998 to 2004, Michael Kors, the creative director of Celine, also launched a personal brand, and LVMH owns the brand share.

But what's dramatic is that after Michael Kors focused on its personal brand, LVMH sold Michael Kors shares too early.

Jonathan Anderson, previously considered to be the successor of Nicolas Ghesqui re, is also trusted by LVMH.

Jonathan Anderson founded its personal brand in 2008, and has been the creative director of the Spanish luxury brand Loewe dress of LVMH group since 2013, and has made a successful brand renovation of the brand, and LVMH also injected capital into J.W.Anderson in the same year.

Professionalism has been considered the passport of fashion industry. Marc Jacobs, Raf Simons, Nicolas Ghesqui re and other star creative directors once had great appeal in the luxury industry.

But at the moment, personal influence has obviously become a new currency, and the star who holds more social capital is at the top of Pyramid. At present, Rihanna's Instagram account has accumulated more than 70 million 500 thousand fans.

According to NPD's survey of 92000 consumers in 2016, Rihanna is the most impressive celebrity among 1000 celebrities and 2500 brands. Rihanna's fans are 3.7 times more willing to buy her products than other stars KOL.

In the past, luxury brands took the star opinion leaders as the carrier of the media, appointed stars as advertising images or spokesmen, and disseminated the brand image created by their designers through their influence.

Now people have clearly realized that when the star's influence is higher than the brand itself, the star will become a brand directly and become the upstream content production end, which can greatly shorten the communication chain and speed up the efficiency of information pmission.

Build "popular" luxury brand

FENTY's subversion is also reflected in business models.

As a start-up brand, FENTY has adopted a series of sales models that are different from traditional luxury brands.

First, FENTY gave up the three party channels such as physical stores and general merchandise stores, and adopted the direct-to-customer mode, selling products through flash shop and brand official website, which is similar to the street style brand Drop selling mode. This also makes FENTY do not have to pay for the establishment of entity stores.

Jean-Baptiste Voisin emphasizes that so far, no fully digital brand can achieve the goal of earning 50 million euros in 12 months. FENTY is likely to become the first one.

Rihanna said she didn't like to wait until the fashion show ended several months before she could buy the clothes she was looking for. So she tried to break the rules and pointed out that this would be the future trend of the fashion industry.

Although there are more and more luxurious fashion brands involved in online sales, brands like FENTY completely abandon traditional sales methods and adopt DTC mode are rare.

According to QUARTZ's survey in 2018, despite the relatively slow progress in the digitalization of luxury fashion brands, the income of the three largest luxury brands in the world, LVMH, Kai Yun and Li Feng, from the DTC channel, accounted for a significant increase in annual sales in recent years.

Secondly, FENTY abandoned the fashion show to break the seasonal character of luxury brands. The latest brand series was released through social media, while consumers who visited the flash shop were able to take the lead in feeling the series of objects.

In fact, the act of giving up fashion shows has a direct impact on the brand's design process.

In the past, luxury brands needed to present a series of concept costumes in fashion show, only a small part could be mass produced, and the design team needed to develop commercial piece on the basis of seasonal concept and eventually sold in stores.

From the first series of Rihanna, the series conveys strong practicality.

The white suit skirt and waist waist design are combined. The basic denim skirt has a slit design on the side, and the pink suit suits the waist feeling of the street feeling. Every single item seems to have a sense of control over the design. It is ready for the series to sell directly in the official website.

In other words, the brand creative team saves a whole set of processes from creative concept to business, avoiding unnecessary waste, thereby preventing consumers from falling into the psychological gap caused by the inconsistency of products in fashion shows and shops, so that consumers can buy the same products they see on the Internet.

FENTY conveys a clear mass signal.

Rihanna said she wanted FENTY to be highly inclusive, so the brand would launch more sizes so that consumers of different shapes could find suitable clothes.

But there are no specific details about the size.

Jean-Baptiste Voisin, chief strategist at LVMH, emphasizes that brands want to combine European luxury traditions with American inclusiveness.

The definition of luxury brands has changed.

In the past, people used to define luxury brands with a long history of brand, sense of distance and mystery, rarity, high price and experience of products.

Now, this definition has changed dramatically.

Take FENTY as an example, LVMH breaks out a new luxury brand for Rihanna, which means that the long history of the brand is no longer a prerequisite for luxury brands.

As more and more brands increase their exposure to social media, especially from the start of FENTY, they choose to face the business model of consumers directly. It may prove that distance and mystery are no longer important, and consumers prefer preference.

In FENTY, rarity, price and experience are still reflected, but the rarity of its products is no longer reflected in the use of rare leather and fabrics, but through the limited sale and hunger marketing to prevent product flooding.

In terms of price, the price of FENTY products from Euro 200 to Euro 1100 is in line with the price band of luxury goods, but at the same time it is lower than that of many top luxury brands. This reflects the popularity of the brand.

Rihanna also admitted that although only a small proportion of her fans could afford 200 euros T-shirts, FENTY eventually built up a luxury brand.

In terms of experience, FENTY's special business mode has abandoned the traditional services of luxury brand stores, but through the flash shop and the occasional sale, it has increased the fresh experience that is more suitable for the younger generation of consumers.

Once, craft, fabric and design were considered as necessary conditions for luxury goods. Nowadays, influence is luxury.

From the above point of view, the brand led by FENTY is rewriting the traditional definition of luxury goods.

Fashion headlines earlier reported in the report that the launch of FENTY does not exclude another secret weapon of Bernard Arnault's response to Gucci. His intention is very obvious, that is, using the most current traffic and commercial value stars to create a luxury brand that brings fresh feelings to young people.

In fact, since 2017, LVMH has shown its ambition to subvert the traditional luxury goods industry. The appointment of Virgil Abloh as the creative director of Louis Vuitton menswear is one of the most obvious signs.

At the same time, through the creative director of women's clothing Nicolas Ghesqui re re Louis Vuitton customer group, the brand will use the creative director of men's clothing Virgil Abloh, with a relatively small market share of men's clothing market as a cut to attract young consumer groups, and take a steady step in the combination of chess.

LVMH's second ace is from DIOR.

In 2017, LVMH bought the DIOR garment industry for 6 billion 500 million euros.

With the help of Maria Grazia Chiuri, the creative director of women's clothing, DIOR has been welcomed by millennial consumers in a younger position compared to Louis Vuitton and has established a new feminist proposition.

LVMH's appointment to Hedi Slimane is also a risky move under the strategic needs of the group.

Under the premise of consumer dissatisfaction, LVMH still has a reasonable explanation for the support of all Hedi Slimane pformation.

From changing new Logo, emptying social media to changing the style of design, LVMH hopes that Hedi Slimane will bring new possibilities of development in change, and its most taboo is invariable.

It is noteworthy that Rihanna, in an interview with T magazine, said Bernard Arnault was very excited about FENTY's innovative business model and was very supportive.

In CHANEL, Hermes and other luxury luxury giants, LVMH seems to be most active in business mode innovation.

About LVMH?

Even for Rihanna, whose business value has been repeatedly proved, the success of FENTY is still unknown.

In an interview, Jean-Baptiste Voisin stressed that FENTY is not just a celebrity brand. Besides Rihanna fans, the brand must attract more women and will not rely entirely on the personal image of Rihanna.

Rihanna also knows that even if its personal image is strong enough, FENTY must not rely too much on its personal influence.

In an interview with the US magazine T, she revealed that the so-called celebrity beauty and fashion industry has been gradually saturated. Overuse of stars will dilute her personal image, so she chooses FENTY instead of a more well-known Rihanna as the brand name, so that she can compare herself with her in doing these jobs.

Some analysts say that although Fenty Beauty has achieved great success, cosmetic products are not as expensive as luxuries.

LVMH is also at risk for the high-end positioning of Rihanna's personal brand, especially when investors predict that global luxury consumption will slow down. Consumers may not be willing to take the price of buying Louis Vuitton handbags to pay for Rihanna.

Diana Espino, vice president of KENDO global marketing and brand development, who has worked with Rihanna for many years, believes that although Rihanna still ranks first in the attention of celebrities of social media celebrities, how to display the authenticity of a fashion icon and entertainment star in the era of social media pparency is the key to the continuation of its business value.

Mario Ortelli, a luxury market analyst, said that LVMH definitely knows what they are doing. In terms of design, marketing, sales and supply chain, they have the best platform in the world, which is why they dare to make such bets, but the actual results still depend on the implementation.

The establishment of a fashion brand is a difficult systematic work, and the establishment of luxury brands is even more challenging.

Before Rihanna, the successful establishment of luxury brand celebrities was only the The Row of the American Olsen sisters.

In an interview with the financial times, DIOR's former CEO Sidney Toledano said it takes time to build brands.

Successful brands have three pillars: designers, management and brands.

These components need to work together, which takes time.

Brand development takes five to six years to develop its potential.

The creation of luxury brands takes time to precipitate.

Although FENTY proves that brands can be positioned as luxury brands without a long brand history and technology threshold, this does not mean that consumers can not distinguish between consumer goods and luxury goods.

For FENTY, the brand is just standing on the starting line, which requires a series of ruthless market tests in the future, and is constantly revised through feedback.

For LVMH, endorsement without reservation is equally risky for FENTY.

Luxury brands often have their own unique brand characteristics, each brand has its value for luxury goods.

However, since the late 80s, luxury brands entered monopoly period.

LVMH has attracted many luxury brands to become oligopoly with more than 70 brands.

Under the management of collectivization, these more than 70 luxury brands serve the strategic objectives and business development of the group, and form a relatively consistent value system.

However, the entry of FENTY brings a new definition of luxury, which is undoubtedly a challenge to other luxury brand values.

Once LVMH decides to implement the FENTY model in the group, then the era of maximizing creativity without cost and creating dreams through fashion show will truly become the past tense, which deserves our vigilance.

The launch of the FENTY means that celebrity brands in the social media era can be equals with DIOR, Louis Vuitton and other luxury brands. It is a sign that the fashion industry breaks class barriers.

But it may also mean lowering the standard of luxury and diluting the value of the luxury brand.

In group strategy, LVMH tends to form a self contradictory situation.

Profit driven luxury oligarchs are likely to kill real luxury goods.