Let the disruption of status quo begin. Our queen Rihanna is at it yet again, breaking boundaries and ceilings with the launch of FENTY Maison in collaboration with LVMH.
Rihanna will become the first woman to create an original brand (from scratch!) at LVMH, the first woman of color at the head of an LVMH maison, and her line will be the first new house created by the group (since Christian Lacroix in 1987).
Her first “drop” of the brand occurred in the uber-chic Marais district in Paris, pre-opening to international press, bloggers and social media influencers on Thursday, May 24. The Paris pop-up location will stay open through June 2, as the e-shop went live on Wednesday, May 29.
Rihanna has already broken barriers and far surpassed expectations with the launch of her FENTY beauty line. And according to Bloomberg, after the venture surged to nearly €500 million in sales during its first year in business, the owner of luxury’s top heavyweights gave carte blanche to the multihyphenate star to lead the new label. LVMH brings investment funds, supply chain expertise, and business and design talent to support the project, while Rihanna is set to boost visibility with a new and more diverse set of consumers.
What impresses us most about this new venture is Rihanna’s ability to take something as elite as the luxury industry and completely turn it on its head. LVMH’s chief strategy officer Jean Baptiste Voisin has even commented, “She has this charisma. She isn’t the most famous person in the world; there are some people with more followers.” (Rihanna has more than 70 million Instagram followers, while Kim Kardashian has 140 million.) “I’m sure some of them are very professional,” Voisin continued, “but they’re not Rihanna.”
Rihanna is a revolutionary and is set to completely revolutionize Paris fashion by bringing in more diversity and inclusion with her curve-loving pieces made of subdued color palettes and sharply tailored masculine silhouettes remastered with a feminine and (sometimes subversive) club-wear twist.
“I think women are moody in general and dress according to that mood. I’m like that and the clothes reflect that,” she said. But she also made note to clarify that her collection is not just for those biologically female: “I don’t want people to conform to one area to shop in. Whoever comes in and likes it should buy — it’s for any gender.”
All we can say is, all hail the queen.
Photographer Credit: Julien Hekimian
