Content area
Full Text
Fashion is a pleasure for the woman buying Gucci's new-season pink Mongolian lamb chubby coat for pounds 5,355 on Bond Street. For two French billionaires, fashion is a business and a battle to the death. For over two years, Bernard Arnault, chairman of the mighty Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy luxury goods empire, and Francois Pinault, chairman of Pinault Printemps Redoute (Gucci Group's majority shareholder), have been slugging it out over LVMH's 10 per cent stake in Gucci Group. Yesterday Gucci Group issued the shock announcement that LVMH will relinquish its shares in the group with an $806.5m (pounds 550m) deal valuing LVMH's shares of Gucci Group at $94 per share.
LVMH appears to have given in gracefully and beaten a retreat. Only Arnault doesn't give in gracefully. He declared "interest" in Gucci Group with a hostile 34 per cent stock raid of Gucci shares in 1999. Only a deal with Pinault's PPR, which gave him a controlling 42 per cent stake in Gucci (for $3bn, about pounds 2bn) saved Gucci from LVMH's clutches in the same year. The fact that Gucci Group's director Tom Ford had an exit clause written into his contract, should LVMH acquire the controlling share, tells the real tale. Tom Ford is the goose that lays the golden egg. Without him, Gucci would be as useless as Fred Astaire's discarded tap shoes.
All these boardroom shenanigans don't mean much to our Bond Street lady snuggled into her Mongolian Lamb chubby. For the luxury goods junkie, the only figure that counts is the price tag. The only fact is Gucci's continued desirability.
Ford has rarely put a foot wrong since his breakthrough Gucci catwalk show in 1995. "The 1995 collection was a stunning business move on a number of levels," says Ashley Heath, editorial director of The Face, Arena Homme Plus and Pop. "The advertising [shot by Mario Testino] was amazing. The catwalk show [all Studio 54 and retro sex] was memorable for the elitist fashion press. The clothes were memorable [sexy and high-voltage glam in the face of a minimalist season] and, more importantly, commercial. The accessories were desirable a full two years before the accessories boom exploded." An ingredient the fashion press misses is Ford's humour. He has...