The Emperor
Bernard Arnault
It is not everyday that someone manages to unite fashion temples Louis Vuitton, Fendi and Christian Dior – three loud and audacious labels with killer monogram logos and loyal clienteles. Combine that with Moёt Hennessey Louis Vuitton, Dom Pérignon, Sephora, TAG Heuer and recent showstoppers like Krug, Ruinart, New World wines, Loewe, Marc Jacobs, Guerlain and BeneFit, and the first question that pops into mind is, how?
Chairman and ceo of Moёt Hennessey Louis Vuitton and owner of Christian Dior SA, Bernard Arnault is a fashion emperor in his own right. Born in Roubaix, France, he worked as an engineer in his family’s Ferret-Savinel construction company, serving as its president from 1978 to 1984. He then undertook the reorganisation of the Financière Agache holding company and reinvigorated Christian Dior in the process. In 1989, he finally accomplished his dream of creating the world's leading luxury products group when he assumed reign of LVMH.
Arnault is the richest man in France with an estimated 26 billion USD to his name. His strength lies in his ability to anticipate trends that work well in parallel as they compete within a value chain.
Famous for spending millions on yearly advertising campaigns and ritzy events, Arnault’s approach is bold and emphatic. “Our products, window displays, fashion shows and marketing campaigns bear witness to the quality and creativity of our group. But our real strength lies in LVMH’s craftsmen,” says Arnault. In a world where everybody wants to be somebody, power is more a need than a desire. A shrewd businessman with an eye for canine-sharp brands, Arnault single-handedly continues to blend fashion-houses into fashion-empires.
The Luxury Hero
Norbert Platt
Having transformed Montblanc from a niche player to a mass luxury-house between 1987 and 2004, it was no surprise that Swiss-based Richemont SA appointed astute Norbert Platt as its ceo. In so doing, Platt has assumed responsibility of Montblanc’s sister-brands Cartier, Jaeger LeCoultre, Piaget, Dunhill, Lancel, and Chloé, while remaining a member of the Montblanc management board, and the non-executive president of Montblanc International.
Leaving Montblanc solidly revived in terms of total revenue and net profit to become second biggest in the Richemont establishment of luxury brands, Platt’s no-nonsense persona seems to work. In the luxury writing-instrument market Montblanc grabbed up to 70 per cent of the market. “In the watch business, even Rolex doesn’t have that kind of leverage,” says Platt about the difference between how saturated the watch market is relative to the writing instrument one.
Always conducting thorough market research rather than relying on instinct, Platt looks for the potential of growth in the most unlikely of corners. For Montblanc to earn more market-share, the company tapped into other products in order to make up for the remaining 30 per cent gap in the pen market. By incorporating leathers and watches, Platt was able to fill that gap and embark on taking on the Richemont legacy.
Now in his late fifties, Platt sees life as more complicated today than the simple times when fathers were mere security providers and mothers took care of the emotional nurturing. Believing that success is based on pride and that success begets more success, he believes that for Richemont, the 100-year-old brand is the hero. “The brand doesn’t serve the ceo, the ceo serves the brand,” he says.
The Queen Bee
Anna Wintour
Although never spending longer than 15 New York minutes at any one event, her token bob, dark sunglasses and immaculate Manolos grace the most important of fashion events. Editor-in-chief of American Vogue since 1988, Anna Wintour has brought Bazaar editor Diana Vreeland’s daring 1930s outdoor photo-shoots of celebrities to utmost vision. Starting her career in the early 1970s at Harpers and Queen, Harper’s Bazaar, British Vogue and New York magazine, she would later unflinchingly state her ambition to take over American Vogue from then editor-in-chief Grace Mirabella.
Her upper-class British upbringing afforded her a mélange between high fashion and inexpensive finds from young designers she saw potential in. Jumpstarting the careers of Dior’s John Galliano and Louis Vuitton’s Marc Jacobs by recommending them to LVMH’s Bernard Arnault, she has been aptly named NYC’s ‘Unofficial Mayoress’.
Although her demanding persona keeps Vogue’s personnel on their impeccably manicured toes, Wintour is hardest on herself. Despite the fantasy world of private jets, chauffeured limos, Ritz Carlton stays, and runway shows timed in accordance with her schedule, Wintour’s busy schedule begs to differ – she prefers for her assistants to attend to her scheduling needs.
Waking up at five am for her hair and make-up ritual, dressing-to-the-nines in outfits that haven’t hit runways yet, she enters Vogue’s offices setting an unmistakable example to her employees. A woman with a sharp mind and ultimately living in a man’s world, she gives urban ladies a monthly peek at what dream is in vogue – never forgetting to bring yesterday’s savoir vivre into our fashion conscience.
The Godfather
Mounir Moufarrige
Whereas some fashion moguls operate with loudly monogrammed brands adorning tabloid-fashionistas, British-Lebanese Mounir Moufarrige plays it low-key and creates a lasting hype with little, if no, publicity.
Ubiquitously influential, his past endeavours have seen him pushing Richemont’s Alfred Dunhill from tobacco products to leather goods, snapping up Stella McCartney to revive Chloё, partnering with French leather-goods maker Goyard, co-founding French Luxury Group for such big names as Scherrer and Emmanuel Khan while still running English underwear label Worth.
As president of Emanuel Ungaro, he recently hired Columbian designer Esteban Cortazar, proving yet again that he inaudibly hits the notes that matter. “Cortazar is only 23, but he sees a fresher, cooler Ungaro,” says Moufarrige. Keen on budding talent, his long-haul strategy is to create a recognition that grows with the brand rather than an upsurge that fizzles out. “Look at Goyard. Anyone that knows luggage has tremendous respect for a brand that has matured for over a century,” he says.
You can pick up hints of Al Pacino’s worldliness, English succinctness and Lebanese emotion hidden beneath Moufarrige’s poise. “People want to be cool. Not shabby-cool. I see men reverting to their grandfathers’ impeccable dress code, but with effortless chic.” Not afraid to speak his mind, Moufarrige has a profound respect for women that seeps through the collections he gives his blessings to, “Once the rush for being career-oriented plateaus, the ladies will realise that their minds can seduce anything they want,” he opines.
His partnership with designer Italo Fontana for U-Boat watches pushed watch-face diameters to 53 millimetres for the first time – a taboo not to have been countered. And his marketing strategy for the Italian watch brand is maximised on the lessons he learned from his Panerai days.
The Visionary
Nicolas G. Hayek
Born to Lebanese parents in 1928, Nicolas George Hayek who headed a business consulting firm – Hayek Engineering Inc. – got his big break in 1985 when he suggested merging two Swiss watchmakers, in order to compete with Japanese quartz technology. His first Swatch, plastic with 51 parts instead of 150, cut costs and produced a brand to be reckoned with. Swatch Group’s 157 factories are now the world’s largest manufacturers of finished watches for such names as Omega, TAG Heuer, Breitling, Officine Panerai, Porsche Design and Rado.
Better known as Mr. Swatch, Hayek is also the father of the Smart car, Mercedes’ spin-off city car with interchangeable body panels. A lavish man who loves nature, his Nicolas G. Hayek Centre is the new Swatch store in Ginza, Tokyo and is framed with greenery. Its 13 floors are connected by hydraulic glass elevators that also function as showrooms. He has also established the Nicolas G. Hayek Watchmaking School in order to keep the Swiss craftsmanship alive.
Oftentimes showy and wearing three watches at the same time, Hayek’s strategy is to catch the interviewers and industry off-guard. He recently started a holding company in Biel, Switzerland for the development of clean energy from hydrogen fuel-cells and electrolysis. Saying that he has the resources and connections to “do something”, Hayek appointed long-time Omega ambassador George Clooney on the board of directors along with the continual support of fellow environmentalist Al Gore.
Estimated to have a wealth of 3.2 billion USD, Hayek remains chairman of the Swatch Group but has handed the responsibility of ceo to his 47-year-old son Nicolas Hayek Jr. Although Beirut’s clientele waste no time catching on to Swatch’s latest fads, it is amusing that barely anyone knows that behind this whole game, is a Lebanese mind.
The Gem Lover
Fawaz Gruosi
“As a kid I breathed the Orient and in Florence I felt the Renaissance” says the maestro of red-carpet gems, Fawaz Gruosi, summarising his success with one word – love. Born to a Lebanese father and Italian mother, he grew up in Florence and started his jewellery career at 18, becoming Harry Winston’s official representative in Saudi Arabia. Gianni Bvlgari would later snap him up before Gruosi would take off to found de Grisogono’s gem-line in 1993 – naming it after his partner’s marquise grandmother because of “the ring it had to it” and later buying it for his own.
Adamant that he is not a jeweller but a lover of risqué gems and volumes, Gruosi explains his philosophy, “Old-school jewellery was a set, whereas today’s woman steps outside in jeans, a wife-beater, and a one-off de Grisogono – a continuation of her clothes,” his Italian accent is almost songlike. His daringness also placed his Instrumento N°Uno watch on the accessories map at the Basel Fair in 2000. “I don’t understand nothing about watches, so I thought of watch-functions to convince myself to wear one. My latest idea was a mechanical digital watch without a battery. People said I’m wasting time. As usual, I didn’t listen and it worked out,” he quips.
Sending shockwaves throughout the gem-industry in 1996, he introduced the black diamond, causing worldwide retailers to follow in his stride. “I was accused of being a thief, but it wasn’t so much me as it was the competition’s demand that shot up the prices,” he recalls, “I don’t know how I did it. It is love…courage. Luck is on your side once, twice, but not always. There has to be another ingredient – impatience.”
His 15-year refusal to take a vacation and eagerness for things to finish yesterday is great for work but at home “they hate me,” he chuckles sheepishly as he continues my sentence. So would he consider himself an “It’s either my way or the highway” man? “It’s funny you should say that because I once said those exact words,” he says between laughs before dropping a hint about the Hollywood Domino charity tournament hosted by de Grisogono before the Oscars. “I don’t know how to play Domino but I have one week to learn.” In Gruosi-speak, this means plenty of time.
