Succession Obsession

**Lauren Sherman** (0:04)
Hello, and welcome to Fashion People. I'm Lauren Sherman, writer of Puck's Fashion and Beauty Memo Line Sheet. And today with me on the show is journalist Marc Beaugé. We're talking about Bernard Arnault's media blitz and what it means for LVMH, plus the weird ballet stitch, 100 icons of French design, and plenty more.
Happy Tuesday, everyone. Hope you're having a great week. I'm laying low in Los Angeles enjoying the conveniences of the US., in California in particular. I'm going to tell you guys about this, so I think it's funny and it's connected to everything we talk about here on Fashion People. But I went to the dentist yesterday in Glendale, and it was really one of the most American moments of my life. I'm walking down the block after going to, after the dentist, I stopped by Starbucks to get some egg white bites as one does. I was wearing bike shorts and my Loewe. I told you a T-shirt, which they made when Challengers came out because, as you all know, Jonathan Anderson was the designer at Loewe, and he was also the costume designer of Challengers. Anyway, I'm walking down the block thinking about how bad all the restaurants and this pedestrian strip look like, just why can't anything be good except for Starbucks with my two hot egg bites? Then I look up and I admire the theater that's on this block, that is like a vintage theater and they're showing the Odyssey in 70 millimeter. I thought, I really have to go see the Odyssey. I really need to go.
Then I also thought, if I was still in Paris right now, I would not have any desire to go see the Odyssey. But because I'm in California, I feel this urge, I must go or I'm not a part of the world. Then suddenly, this young person screams out, I love your shirt, as I'm stuffing my face with these egg bites. Then I went to WeWork and a Pilates class and they are in the same building. So to me, people, this is America. The WeWork and the Pilates and, well, the La Gris Pilates or whatever, they're all in the same place. They're five minutes away from where I went to the dentist and got my egg white bites. Unfortunately, there was no place for me to buy a ready-made vegetable salad, but it's okay. Anyway, this week in Line Sheet, we've got lots of good stuff, some French Vogue gossip, lots on the Arnault's and LVMH. Shein just is filing to go public, Malik's all over that. We've got LVMH earnings, we've got Caring earnings, we have Hermes earnings, we've got Prada earnings. It's all happening. It's going to be a fun one, so check it out and enjoy this conversation with Marc.
Marc Beaugé, welcome back to Fashion People.

**Marc Beaugé** (2:49)
Thanks, Lauren, thanks a lot.

**Lauren Sherman** (2:52)
Emergency podcast.

**Marc Beaugé** (2:55)
Indeed, we needed that.

**Lauren Sherman** (2:58)
We did. So last week, Le Monde, which is the biggest newspaper in France, right?

**Marc Beaugé** (3:06)
Yes, by far.

**Lauren Sherman** (3:07)
Published a six-part series on Bernard Arnault. I would say it was less on LVMH and more on Bernard Arnault specifically, in which he participated, all of his children participated, his wife participated, and also all of his deputies, Michael Burke, Sydney Toledano, Pietro Bacari. I did not see, you know who wasn't quoted as Tony Belloni?

**Marc Beaugé** (3:31)
Oh, yeah, no, it wasn't in it actually.

**Lauren Sherman** (3:34)
But Bianchi was in it, Stefan Bialy, all of them.

**Marc Beaugé** (3:37)
Everybody, even all the people working with Bernard Arnault, like Picard, he talked. He told a few stories, yeah.

**Lauren Sherman** (3:46)
So the series focused on the six parts where the first one was sort of his, really how LVMH came together, and it was less about the history of him buying that company for a dollar, and more about the 90s and how it came together. Then it went into, what was next, the French politics, then foreign politics, then media control, and then his contributions to the arts, but also how that helps him with taxes, and then finally succession.
Exactly. Can you sort of put in context what you thought of the series and why you think it came out now, all that stuff?

**Marc Beaugé** (4:36)
So there is a tradition at Le Monde to publish the summer series. As you know, people in France stop doing anything in July and August, almost everything. So we need material to read and to enjoy summer. So every summer, Le Monde will be publishing big stories, big series of articles about big subjects. So a few years back, actually, Raphaël Bacquet, one of the two writers of that article, that series of articles, started like five years ago, a series with Vanessa Schneider. So the two of them already did five years ago, a series on successions, the big succession in big French companies. The first one was obviously on the LVMH succession. So the story, in a way, started with that article five years ago.