by Dana Thomas
More than once while reporting and writing Deluxe I thanked the heavens above for allowing me to start my journalism career in the Style section of the Washington Post—the writer’s section of the writer’s newspaper—during the reign of the formidable Ben Bradlee. Editors Mary Hadar, Deborah Heard, Rose Jacobius, and Gene Weingarten and music critic Joseph McLellan took me as a green and eager college student, gave me terrific assignments, and pushed me to dig deeper and write better. It was journalism boot camp and finishing school all in one, and I use all that they taught me every day of my career.
Most important, I could have never written Deluxe without the encouragement of my family and the profound support and love of my husband, Hervé, and our incredibly patient daughter, Lucie—my light—who gamely accompanied me on many of my reporting adventures and spent half of her six-year life waiting for me to finish this project.
Now, honey, now we can go play in the park.
NOTES
INTRODUCTION
Page
The luxury goods industry: Claire Kent, luxury goods analyst, Morgan Stanley London, e-mail, April 18, 2005.
Thirty-five major brands: Claire A. Kent et al., “Making the Sale,” Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, March 11, 1999, p. 10.
In Asia: David B. Yoffie and Mary Kwak, “Gucci Group N.V., (A)” Harvard Business School, case 9–701–037, September 19, 2000; revised May 10, 2001, p. 4.
The Chinese enriched: Palmer White, The Master Touch of Lesage: Embroidery for French Fashions (Paris: Editions du Chêne, 1987), p. 16.
As Diana Vreeland: Diana Vreeland, D.V. (New York: Da Capo Press, 1997), p. 47.
“I’m no philosopher”: Stanley Karnow, Paris in the Fifties (New York: Random House, 1997), p. 263.
In 2005: “Best & Most 2005,” Generation DataBank, www.generation.se.
In their best year: Rana Foroohar, with Mac Margolis in Rio de Janeiro, “Maximum Luxury,” Newsweek Atlantic Edition, July 25, 2005, p. 44.
The Swiss bank: Rana Foroohar, “Going Places,” Newsweek International, May 15–May 22, 2006, p. 54.
The private security: Ibid., p. 58.
By 2011: Foroohar, “Maximum Luxury,” p. 44.
When Arnault: Deborah Ball, “Decisiveness and Charisma Put Yves Carcelle in the Hot Seat at LVMH’s Principal Division,” Wall Street Journal Europe, October 1, 2001, p. 31.
“What I like”: “Arnault, in His Own Words,” Women’s Wear Daily, December 6, 1999, p. 11.
CHAPTER ONE: AN INDUSTRY IS BORN
“Luxury is a necessity”: Anna Johnson, Handbags: The Power of the Purse (New York: Workman, 2002), p. 21.
Its flagship: Eric Wilson, “Optimism’s the Point, Not Excess Baggage,” New York Times, October 13, 2005, p. G1.
“Luxury is crossing”: Joshua Levine, “Liberté, Fraternité—but to Hell with Egalité!” Forbes, June 2, 1997, p. 80.
“High profitability”: Suzy Wetlaufer, “The Perfect Paradox of Star Brands,” Harvard Business Review, October 2001, p. 123.
Louis XIV dressed: Stanley Karnow, Paris in the Fifties (New York: Random House, 1997), p. 268.
Louis XVI’s wife: Judith Thurman, “Dressed for Excess: Marie-Antoinette, Out of the Closet,” New Yorker, September 25, 2006, p. 138.
She was “an object”: Palmer White, The Master Touch of Lesage: Embroidery for French Fashion (Paris: Editions du Chêne, 1987), pp. 20–21.
“French fashions”: Karnow, Paris in the Fifties, pp. 268–69.
At the age of thirteen: Paul-Gérard Pasols Louis Vuitton: The Birth of Modern Luxury, (New York: Abrams, 2005), p. 13.
The 292-mile trek: Ibid., p. 21.
“Here you find”: Ibid., p. 24.
Vuitton became: Ibid., p. 30.
In 1854: Ibid., p. 354.
Throughout the mid-1800s: White, Master Touch of Lesage, p. 24.
“Women will stoop”: Karnow, Paris in the Fifties, p. 270.
Worth’s dresses: White, Master Touch of Lesage, pp. 24–25.
His prices: Karnow, Paris in the Fifties, p. 271.
Louis Vuitton’s business: Pasols, Louis Vuitton, p. 88.
To keep up with: Ibid., p. 76.
“In those days”: Maria Riva, Marlene Dietrich: By Her Daughter (New York: Knopf, 1993), p. 111.
In the 1920s, France: White, Master Touch of Lesage, p. 56.
In five years: Ibid., p. 51.
In the 1930s: Ibid., p. 62.
“The huge skirt”: Diana Vreeland, D.V. New York: Knopf, 1984), p. 98.
But couturier Lucien: Marie-France Pochna, Christian Dior: The Man Who Made the World Look New (New York: Arcade, 1996), p. 78.
“You can force us”: Ibid., p. 77.
The Vuittons were: Kim Willsher, “Louis Vuitton’s Links with Vichy Regime Exposed,” Guardian, June 3, 2004, p. 15.
“The styles [during]”: Karnow, Paris in the Fifties, pp. 266–67.
I remember Ivana: Nina Hyde, “Lacroix’s Curtain-Raising Couture; Kicking Off the Fall Shows with Soft Chiffon & Crepe,” Washington Post, July 24, 1988, p. G1.
The swanlike models: Karnow, Paris in the Fifties, pp. 258–59.
“After all the horrors”: Ibid., p. 264.
The Parisian clients: Ibid., p. 263.
Couture houses: Ibid., p. 260.
By 1951: White, Master Touch of Lesage, p. 80.
Soon licensing: Richard Morais, Pierre Cardin: The Man Who Became a Label (London: Bantam, 1991), p. 91.
“I was staying”: Vreeland, D.V., pp. 106–7.
“Bloomingdale’s”: Ibid., p. 134.
By 1977: Nadège Forestier and Nazanine Ravaï, The Taste of Luxury: Bernard Arnault and the Moët-Hennessy Louis Vuitton Story (London: Bloomsbury, 1992), p. 54.
Finally, in 1977: Hugh Sebag-Montefiore, Kings on the Catwalk: The Louis Vuitton and Moët-Hennessy Affair (London: Chapmans, 1992), p. 82.
He decided: Ibid., p. 16.
Recamier expanded: Pasols, Louis Vuitton, p. 280.
In 1984: In 1984, Vuitton sales were 1.25 billion French francs and profits were 197 million French francs. Chris Hollis (Investor Relations, LVMH), e-mail with the author, February 5, 2007.
In 1986: Sebag-Montifiore, Kings on the Catwalk, p. 115.
CHAPTER TWO: GROUP MENTALITY
The result: Suzy Wetlaufer, “The Perfect Paradox of Star Brands,” Harvard Business Review, October 2001, p. 122.
The France: Jennifer Steinhauer, “The King of Posh,” New York Times, August 17, 1997, Sec.3, p. 1.
“You have to”: Joshua Levine, “Liberté, Fraternité—but to Hell with Egalité!” Forbes, June 2, 1997, p. 80.
Upon graduating: Nadège Forestier and Nazanine Ravaï, The Taste of Luxury: Bernard Arnault and the Moët-Hennessy Louis Vuitton Story (London: Bloomsbury, 1992), p. 10.
Arnault fled: Ibid., pp. 13–14.
“I can be”: Ibid., p. 11.
Its only hope: Hugh Sebag-Montefiore, Kings on the Catwalk: The Louis Vuitton and Moët-Hennessy Affair (London: Chapmans, 1992), pp. 23–24.
He convinced Lazard: Levine, “Liberté, Fraternité,” p. 80.
It was perhaps: Sebag-Montefiore, Kings on the Catwalk, p. 41.
He shocked: David D. Kirkpatrick, “The Luxury Wars,” New York Megazine, April 26, 1999, p. 24.
Unlike Dior’s: Sebag-Montefiore, Kings on the Catwalk, pp. 30–31.
When he took: Forestier and Ravaï, Taste of Luxury, p. 17.
“I don’t want”: Sebag-Montefiore, Kings on the Catwalk, p. 37.
In 1988: Nina Hyde, “The Battle of Lacroix,” Washington Post, April 7, 1988, p. C1.
Feeling beaten: Sebag-Montefiore, Kings of the Catwalk, pp. 50–58.
In the spring: Ibid., p. 137.
At one point: Ibid., p. 220.
The French daily: Forestier and Ravaï, Taste of Luxury, p. 93.
Finally, in April: Sebag-Montefiore, Kings on the Catwalk, p. 232.
His motivation: Forestier and Ravaï, Taste of Luxury, p. 106.
Carcelle was: Deborah Ball, “Decisiveness and Charisma Put Yves Carcelle in the Hot Seat at LVMH’s Principle Division,” Wall Street Journal Europe, October 1, 2001, p. 31.
“You think of Vuitton”: Zoe Heller, “Jacob’s Ladder,” New Yorker, September 22, 1997, p. 109.
“If you control”: Levine, “Liberté, Fraternité,” p. 80.
By 2004: “LVMH: Full of Potential, Will It Be Realized?” Merrill Lynch, November 2002.
Dior’s sixty-three-year-old: Sebag-Montefiore, Kings on the Catwalk, p. 192.
“[Audrey] Hepburn”: Kirkpatrick, “The Luxury Wars,” p. 24.
In 1996: Levine, “Liberté, Fraternité,” p. 80.
“For a European”: Steinhauer, “King of Posh,” p. 1.
“[Arnault] is”: Ibid., p. 1.
He travels: John Marcom Jr., “The Quiet Afrikaner behind Cartier,” Forbes, April 2, 1990, p. 114.
“We concentrate”: William Hall, “Companies & Finance: When Time Is a Business’s Ultimate Luxury,” Financial Times, June 9, 2000, p. 34.
“It’s not just about”: James Fallon, “Rupert’s Way: While Competitors Spend for Acquisitions Like There’s No Tomorrow, Richemont CEO Johann Rupert Plans for a Rainy Day,” Women’s Wear Daily, May 30, 2000, p. 8S.
“Product integrity”: Ibid.
“We are not”: Hall, “Companies & Finance,” p. 34.
“In five to ten”: Fallon, “Rupert’s Way,” p. 8S.
Cartier accounts for: Miles Socha, “Milking Fashion’s Cash Cows,” WWD The Magazine, November 3, 2003, p. 88.
By the late 1980s: Kirkpatrick, “Luxury Wars,” p. 24.
“It was pretty much”: David Yoffie and Mary Kwak, “Gucci Group N.V. (A),” Harvard Business School case (9–701–037), May 10, 2001, p. 2.
Gucci sales: Ibid., p. 9.
De Sole declared: Kirkpatrick, “Luxury Wars,” p. 24.
Arnault said: Ibid.
Pinault laughed: Sarah Raper, “LVMH’s Arnault: The Tower and the Glory,” Women’s Wear Daily, December 6, 1999, p. 8.
When PPR took: Yoffie and Kwak, “Gucci Group N.V. (A),” p. 14.
Her father, Gino: Myriam de Cesco, “Galeotta fu una borsa,” Lo Specchio, January 8, 2000, pp. 76–80.
“We passed”: Ibid.
“It can be”: Michael Specter, “The Designer,” New Yorker, March 15, 2004, p. 112.
Once Bertelli: Cathy Horyn, “Prada Central,” Vanity Fair, August 1997, p. 96.
By the end of 2001: Specter, “The Designer,” p. 114.
CHAPTER THREE: GOING GLOBAL
In February 1976: Kyojiro Hata, Louis Vuitton Japan: The Building of Luxury (New York: Assouline, 2004), p. 7.
“The serenity”: Ibid., p. 11.
Hata came: Ibid., p. 23.
“During the first ten years”: Ibid., p. 75.
But the economic boom: Claire Kent, Sarah Macdonald, Mandy Deex, and Michinori Shimizu, “Back from Japan,” Morgan Stanley Equity Research, Europe, November 14, 2001, pp. 3, 7.
They were the only: Ilene R. Prusher, “Japanese Retailers Turn to ‘Shetailers,’” Christian Science Monitor, August 29, 2001, p. 1.
It was a wise: Deborah Ball, “Decisiveness and Charisma Put Yves Carcelle in the Hot Seat at LVMH’s Principal Division,” Wall Street Journal Europe, October 1, 2001, p. 31.
In 2006: www.moodiereport.com/pdf/tmr_may_06_6.pdf.
In 1960: Stephanie Strom, “LVMH to Buy Duty-Free Empire for $2.47 Billion,” New York Times, October 30, 1996, p. D1.
Between 1977 and 1995: Judith Miller, “He Gave Away $600 Million, and No One Knew,” New York Times, January 23, 1997, p. A1.
“This was not”: Jon Nordheimer, “Slaughtering the Cash Cow: Millions of Dollars Couldn’t Keep DFS Group Together,” New York Times, March 12, 1997, p. D1.
Feeney, the more: Miller, “He Gave Away $600 Million,” p. A1.
Miller, by contrast: Jerry Adler, “He Gave at the Office,” Newsweek, February 3, 1997, p. 34.
In 1994: David D. Kirkpatrick, “The Luxury Wars,” New York Magazine, April 26, 1999, p. 24.
Feeney and Parker: Vicki M. Young, “Miller Threatens Suit after LVMH Pulls Out of Talks for DFS Stake,” Women’s Wear Daily, March 20, 1997, p. 1.
In 2003: “Japanese International Travelers: Trends and Shopping Behavior,” 2003 JTM/TFWA Japanese Traveler Study, Executive Summary, p. 1.
“Andy was”: Joshua Levine, The Rise and Fall of the House of Barneys (New York: Morrow, 1999), p. 118.
For those who: Ibid., p. 199.
“Rule No. 1”: Kate Betts, “The Retail Therapist,” Time, May 30, 2005, p. 53.
Sales at the Osaka: Ibid.
After Marino renovated: Miles Socha, “King Louis: Louis Vuitton’s New Clothing Store,” Women’s Wear Daily, October 10, 2005, p. 1.
Hata has long: Hata, Louis Vuitton Japan, pp. 40–43.
“It’s luxury”: Elizabeth Heilman Brooke, “Tokyo Club: A New Way to Shop,” International Herald Tribune, February 27, 2004, p. 14.
The total cost: “Chanel Opens Flagship Shop in Tokyo’s Ritzy Ginza,” Agence France Presse, December 4, 2004.
CHAPTER FOUR: STARS GET IN YOUR EYES
Gucci nearly: David B. Yoffie and Mary Kwak, “Gucci Group N.V. (A),” Harvard Business School, case 9-701-037, September 19, 2000; revised May 10, 2001, p. 10.
LVMH spent: Federico Antoni, “LVMH in 2004: The Challenges of Strategic Integration,” Stanford Graduate School of Business, case SM–123, March, 17, 2004, p. 12.
“We are the largest”: David D. Kirkpatrick, “The Luxury Wars,” New York Magazine, April 26, 1999, p. 24.
At Gucci: Yoffie and Kwak, “Gucci Group N.V. (A),” p. 10.
Silent-screen siren: Patty Fox, Star Style: Hollywood Legends as Fashion Icons (Santa Monica, Calif.: Angel City Press, 1995), pp. 76–77 and pp. 83–90.
When Crawford: Ibid., p. 24.
Grace Kelly’s: Ibid., p. 96.
Hollywood stars: Ibid., p. 92.
sold their signatures: Marian Hall, with Marjorie Carne and Sylvia Sheppard, California Fashion: From the Old West to New Hollywood (New York: Abrams, 2002), p. 92.
He originally settled: Salvatore Ferragamo, Shoemaker of Dreams: The Autobiography of Salvatore Ferragamo (Florence: Giunti Gruppo Editoriale, 1985), pp. 37–48.
In the early 1920s: Ibid., pp. 51–54.
“Valentino would drop”: Ibid., pp. 89–92.
But in 1955: Marie-France Pochna, Christian Dior: The Man Who Made the World Look New (New York: Arcade, 1996), pp. 161–162.
For most of the twentieth century: Scott Huver and Mia Kaczinski Dunn, Inside Rodeo Drive: The Store, the Stars, the Story (Santa Monica, Calif.: Angel City Press, 2001),p. 12–18.
The Gucci store: Sara Gay Forden, The House of Gucci; A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), p. 39.
By the late 1970s: Anthony Cook, “Wheeling and Dealing on Status Street,” New West, February 27, 1978, p. 20.
Beverly Hills: Ibid., p. 19.
Hayman was once: Karen Stabiner, “Spring Fashion: King of the Hills,” Los Angeles Times Magazine, February 15, 1998, p. 18.
The neighborhood boys: Judy Bachrach, “Armani in Full”, Vanity Fair, October 2000, p. 193.
Fred Pressman: Joshua Levine, The Rise and Fall of the House of Barneys (New York: Morrow, 1999), p. 90.
In 1979: Michael Kaplan, “Blame It on Armani,” Movieline, September 19, 1999, p. 74.
When Time: Levine, House of Barneys, p. 92.
Vogue’s Anna Wintour: Author interview, Paris, July, 2001.
Jennifer Meyer: Jareen Stabiner, “Dressing Well Is the Best Revenge,” Los Angeles Times Magazine, December 11, 1988, p. 42.
“Those girls”: Gaby Wood, “She’s Got the Look,” Observer, July 16, 2006, p. 12.
Zoe has even: Booth Moore, “In Her Image: Rachel Zoe’s Clients
(Lindsay, Nicole, Jessica) Often Look Like…Her,” Los Angeles Times, July 16, 2005, p. E1.
According to a study:Lifestyle Monitor, January, 2005.
Sir Elton: Shawn Hubler and Gina Piccalo, “The Heirarchy,” Los Angeles Times, March 1, 2005, p. E5.
One prominent stylist: Libby Callaway, “Red Carpet Catfighting: The Seamy Side of the Stars’ Style Wars,” New York Post, February 29, 2004, p. 48.
One stylist reportedly: “Fat Chance,” People Hollywood Daily, February 26, 2005, p. 14.
Chopard’s: Booth Moore, “Red Carpet Revenue,” Los Angeles Times, February 22, 2005, p. E12.
CHAPTER FIVE: THE SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS
“A woman enveloped”: Janet Wallach, Chanel: Her Style and Her Life London: Mitchell Beazley, 1999), p. 162.
“[Dior’s perfume]”: Federico Antoni, “LVMH in 2004: The Challenges of Strategic Integration,” Stanford Graduate School of Business, case SM–123, March, 17, 2004, p. 6.
Prehistoric man: Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses (New York: Random House, 1990), pp. 56–59.
In Crete: Ibid., pp. 60–61.
French king Louis XIV: Ibid., p. 62.
“The industry has”: Caroline Brothers, “The Precise Smell of Success,” International Herald Tribune, October 21–22, 2006, p. 12.