Luxury holding LVMH begins working directly with film studios

Films about fashion and the great creators of fashion houses that have been released in recent years increasingly follow the marketing strategy of the modern owners of these brands. Artists are willing to engage in mutually beneficial cooperation, and luxury brands are introducing special departments into their structures, for which cinema is the most important of all arts.

France’s main luxury holding LVMH, which, in particular, owns Christian Dior, is starting to work directly with film studios. Bernard Arnault’s holding created a company to promote its brands on screen. The new division, called 22 Montaigne Entertainment, based on the group’s Paris headquarters on rue Montaigne, will be headed by Antoine Arnault, son of Bernard Arnault, and one of Christian Dior’s top executives, as well as LVMH North America director Anish Melwani.

LVMH has a huge arsenal of influence on the work of screenwriters, artists, and actors. This is not about banal bribery of filmmakers or studios, and not just about participation in financing. The luxury brands of the holding have the right to the image and name, have huge archives, and have the opportunity to share real or reproduced treasures of the brand with decorators and costume designers. This has already happened, for example, with the film “Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris” (2022), where a poor, middle-aged American woman flies to Paris to receive the main prize in life – a real dress from Christian Dior.

22 Montaigne Entertainment will work in partnership with American company Superconnector Studios, a link between the world of major brands and the entertainment industry in Hollywood. The new company will “coordinate entertainment industry relations on behalf of the group’s more than 75 houses, partnering with key creators, producers and distributors” to “co-develop, co-produce and co-finance” products.

LVMH follows the general trend of fashion brands penetrating the screen, the music scene, and the red carpet of major film festivals and film awards. LVMH’s main rival, luxury holding Kering, did exactly the same thing when it helped produce films about Yves Saint Laurent. The creator of the Kering-owned Yves Saint Laurent brand was played twice within a year of each other by two prominent French actors: Pierre Ninet (Yves Saint Laurent, 2013) and Gaspard Ulliel (Saint Laurent, Style is Me, 2014). Well, since the group also owns the extremely successful Gucci brand, it was all the more easy for the film “The House of Gucci” to appear with an incredible cast of actors, with Lady Gaga, Adam Driver, Al Pacino, Jared Leto, Salma Hayek and Jeremy Irons.

Building on their success, the Pinault family, which owns Kering, is also seeking ever closer contacts with film production. Artemis, the family’s holding company, announced an agreement last fall to take control of US talent agency Creative Artists Agency (CAA), one of the world’s largest entertainment and sports talent agencies.

It’s not far to look for an example of how the structure created by LVMH can work. The recent premiere of the series “New Look: A Style Revolution,” dedicated to the youth of Christian Dior and the birth of his New Look style, talks about the “dark years” of the German occupation, contrasting two styles of behavior, two fashion brands: the then non-existent Christian Dior and the already famous Chanel .

The choice in the series is made between the human and business qualities of the founding father and the founding mother. Christian Dior is trying to survive in France, where the Boches rule, and save his sister, who is associated with the Resistance movement. Chanel is ready to do anything to get back her money and her power over the house, not stopping to ask for help from Hitler’s villains from “17 Moments of Spring”, Schellenberg and Himmler, to take away from her “Jewish partners” (the Wertheimer family, who belonged and belongs to Chanel) command levers. While Dior, of course, does not go underground, but takes positions close to the so-called passive resistance, Chanel, on the instructions of Himmler, is trying to get to Churchill, using old connections and a whole palette of lovers. Ben Mendelsohn plays Dior beautifully, evoking sincere sympathy and admiration. Chanel’s immorality is justified by the brilliant performance of Juliette Binoche, but for those who know not only about the past human and artistic rivalry between two outstanding artists, but also about the ongoing fierce competition between Christian Dior and Chanel, the film seems partly tailored in the Dior atelier on a Parisian street Montaigne.

Alexey Tarkhanov, Paris