LVMH’s Mr. Olympics on Why Luxury and Sports Make Good Bedfellows

PARIS — Since LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton announced a year ago that it had signed on as premium partner of the 2024 Paris and Paralympic Olympic Games, the luxury conglomerate has been involved in every aspect of the sporting competition.

From the medals created by jeweler Chaumet; the outfits for Team France designed by Berluti for the opening ceremonies, and the uniforms, medal trays and trunks produced by Louis Vuitton, LVMH has guaranteed visibility at every stage of the event.

Its wines and spirits will be served in hospitality areas, and it has sponsored top athletes, either at group level or through Vuitton and Dior. And let’s not forget the opening ceremony on Friday, in which those two brands should play a starring role.

All this has led some observers to dub the 2024 Games the “Luxury Olympics.” But Antoine Arnault, the group’s head of communication, image and environment, is not worried about public opinion turning negative.

He’s equally sanguine about the logistical challenges, which range from draconian traffic restrictions that have impacted stores, hotels and restaurants to security incidents, such as the knife attack on a policeman last week near a Vuitton store on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées.

Arnault believes that as France’s largest company, LVMH has a duty to ensure the success of the Paris Games, and he’s banking that close links with sports stars will have trickle-down benefits for its brands, which are positioning themselves as cultural entities as they target new types of consumers. 

In an emailed interview with WWD, LVMH’s Mr. Olympics discusses why luxury and sports make good bedfellows, how LVMH brands are gearing up for the biggest event organized in France and why the honor of dressing Team France has given him the cold sweats. 

WWD: What is your state of mind on the eve of the 2024 Paris Olympics?

Antoine Arnault: A mix of excitement, eagerness and mystery because like everyone else, we will discover the whole of the opening ceremony live on the night itself.

WWD: Luxury brands are making inroads into the sports sector. Why is it important for LVMH to make its presence felt in this segment?

A.A.: The role of our houses in sports is not something recent. At the beginning of the 20th century, Jean Patou designed a pleated skirt for Suzanne Lenglen, disrupting the sporting codes for women at the time. In 1983, Louis Vuitton began its association with sailing, not to mention the close link between Tag Heuer and motorsport, or even all the iconic trophies, such as that of the NBA or the Super Bowl, designed by Tiffany.

Athletes and sports today convey values ​​of excellence, passion and high standards, which echo those of our craftsmen who, every day, carry out each gesture with precision to produce the world’s most beautiful products.

Finally, from a strategic point of view, our collaborations and partnerships in sport or with athletes allow us to reach a wider audience than with more “classic” ambassadors or campaigns. Just look at Instagram, where the two top accounts belong to Cristiano Ronaldo and Leo Messi. Between them, they have more than a billion followers.

WWD: Without giving any spoilers, what message do you hope to convey with your participation in the opening ceremony?  

A.A.: The opening ceremony is a unique event that always seeks to encapsulate what best expresses the identity, culture and heritage of the host country.

As Bernard Arnault and I have said, our aim was not to place our logo here and there. We wanted to contribute with the universal language of creation. 

Through what our houses represent, through their history anchored in Paris and through our values of excellence and French know-how, we have a unique opportunity to take part in this exceptional event by bringing our creativity to the table, as we have done for the medals, the trunks and the athletes’ outfits for the opening ceremonies.

WWD: What have been the biggest lessons learned from this experience, which had your teams working on projects of unprecedented scale, in particular Berluti?

A.A.: Dressing the French athletes could be seen as taking a risk for Berluti, but when I saw our athletes and then the flag bearers dressed in these magnificent outfits, it seemed like an obvious choice. But I won’t pretend it wasn’t a huge logistical challenge to pull it off in less than a year. People don’t realize that Berluti’s collections are very small and planned several seasons in advance, so when it came to making 1,500 outfits from design to manufacturing to alterations in the space of a few months, we sometimes broke out in a cold sweat. But like a fashion show or a theater performance, we were all focused on one objective: to make sure everything is perfect when the curtain rises. 

Ultimately, I believe that the greatest lesson our houses learned from this experience was to carry out these great projects in record time while still doing everything to serve their customers.

WWD: At 150 million euros, it’s a sizable investment. What impact do you expect over time, particularly in the perception of your brands as cultural brands? 

A.A.: With this partnership, we wanted to underline that LVMH is, above all else, a group of artisans and incredible creative talents. That’s what we wanted to convey with our Olympic Games tag line: “Artisans of all victories.” 

As I’ve said before, we do not expect any impact other than contributing at our level to the success of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. This partnership is not about promoting LVMH, but about highlighting the know-how of our brands and the powerful expression of our creativity. Naturally, I sincerely hope that what we have prepared for the athletes and spectators will live up to expectations, because our primary desire is to bring France’s creative and innovative know-how and craftsmanship to all the moments of celebration of these Games. If the French and the whole world notice and admire this heritage of ours, then we will have succeeded.  

WWD: Some people don’t look favorably on the presence of brands at the ceremony and have dubbed the Paris Games the “Luxury Olympics.” Are you worried about potential negative buzz if you’re perceived as being too present?

A.A.: From the start of the negotiations with the Paris 2024 organizers, we shared the convictions that were at the heart of our vision to make the Games more beautiful, more cultural and more creative. Our idea was not to place our logo or run simple ad campaigns. From the start, we wanted our contribution to be different, more focused on our creativity. I’m happy to say that several LVMH houses such as Louis Vuitton, Berluti and Chaumet have been invited to play a major role in the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games by putting their creativity and know-how at the service of key moments of celebration.

At group level, it felt like an obvious partnership, given how much our image and that of our brands is linked to Paris, the City of Light. But it was also a responsibility. We’re the leading French group, by far; the one that recruits the most employees, that pays the most taxes and so forth. We therefore felt it was our duty and our responsibility to fully engage with these Games, to contribute to their success in a very concrete way by becoming the creative partner of Paris 2024. 

I’m not afraid of negative buzz because I deeply believe that we chose to be partners for these two good reasons.

WWD: You work with French charity Secours Populaire. What are you doing during the Olympics to provide access to underprivileged people?

A.A.: Secours Populaire believes that taking part in sports helps children and young people at risk to grow and thrive, and contributes to their physical and mental well-being. It’s also a powerful motor to address topics such as disability, social diversity and gender equality. 

First, we made a donation of 200,000 euros, which in the first year has financed more than 1,300 sports club memberships for children and young people. 

We also wanted to give children and those who benefit from the assistance of Secours Populaire an opportunity to experience these Games firsthand. We invited 350 children to watch the flame pass through Paris, and we are gifting them more than 1,000 tickets and hundreds of spots at the Champion’s Park fan zone to see their heroes up close. 

We’re also inviting them to have unforgettable experiences with our houses by visiting the LVMH Pavilion for craftsmanship demonstrations and the Fondation Louis Vuitton to see an exhibition dedicated to sport.

Other organizations will benefit from free tickets and access to experiences so that as many people as possible can dream during these Games.

We also wanted to support the athletes and fulfill our promise of “know how wow” by gifting 1,210 tickets to athletes with disabilities that did not quality, in association with the French Paralympic and Sports Committee, and to qualified and non-qualified athletes from the French National and Olympic Sports Committee.

WWD: You said that you expect the Olympics to have a neutral impact on the group’s sales in Paris, in line with previous Olympic Games. But this is the first time that the competitions are taking place in the center of the city, with some streets completely closed. Is it realistic to think that there will not be a negative impact on sales during the Games?

A.A.: Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of people and tourists will come to Paris for the Olympic and Paralympic Games and our stores will be there to welcome those who would like to make a purchase, even if I repeat, financial benefits have never been a goal of this partnership. We will all experience some traffic inconveniences and we will adapt, but the main thing in my eyes is to pull off a successful event.

WWD: How is your hospitality division preparing to welcome tourists to Paris during this Olympic period? Do you offer hotel and Olympic ticket packages to your VICs?

A.A.: Our two Parisian hotels [Cheval Blanc Paris and Bulgari Hotel Paris] are on deck, and have been fully booked for a very long time. We offer tailor-made programs to stay in one of our hotels, attend sporting competitions and enjoy experiences offered by our houses. 

We are also opening, for the duration of the Games, the LVMH Pavilion, a showcase in the heart of Paris that highlights all our brand activations during the Olympics, to welcome our guests in an idyllic setting, with a program of talks by former athletes, concerts and parties.