Fenty is over: a first failure for Rihanna
The report for the launch of Fenty was a milestone. The long-awaited success never came. Barely two years after its arrival on the market, the fashion brand Fenty launched jointly by Rihanna and LVMH is ceasing its activities, reports the Women' Wear Daily this Wednesday, February 10 (the beauty and lingerie lines continue). Which is actually no surprise.
Besides the Instagram account of the ready-to-wear brand Fenty frozen since January 1, 2021, and a last collection dating back to November 2020 with the line of heeled shoes created in collaboration with designer Amina Muaddi, sales were not not up to par. Rihanna's cash-machine reputation earned in part through her Fenty makeup line launched in partnership with LVMH (which grossed around half a billion dollars in sales in its first year) wasn't enough to find audiences for the clothing brand, reports the WWD.
Read also » How Fenty Beauty, Rihanna's brand, became a phenomenon
The alliance between the singer and the world leader in luxury had nothing in common, and had everything of a triumph: the r'n'b doll from Barbados with millions of albums sold who becomes an ultra fashion designer credible by managing to convince Bernard Arnault's group to give him carte blanche.
In video, the journey of a cash machine
First times in series
With her second-generation Fenty ready-to-wear line (the first was designed in collaboration with Kering-owned Puma), Rihanna embraced the series of firsts. She was the first celebrity to benefit from such means and such recognition, but also the first woman to create an original brand at LVMH, and the first black woman to lead a fashion house within the luxury group.
Finally, Fenty was the first fashion house to be created by the group since 1987, the year Bernard Arnaud had helped Christian Lacroix and his partner, Jean-Jacques Picart, to launch their brand. The real and digital popularity as well as the business acumen of the singer obviously seduced the big boss of LVMH who hoped to bet on the digital windfall offered to him by the star.
Rihanna and her unpublished autobiographySee the slideshow7 photosLVMH, never far away
With her 90 million subscribers on Instagram, the singer was indeed advancing a major promise: a high power of influence on Generation Z, this famous target, very volatile and highly coveted by luxury. Argument that she has been able to demonstrate in the past by collaborating on several occasions with LVMH. First with Dior, which made her its first black muse in 2015. We remember that a few months later, the house took the approach further, entrusting her with the creation of a pair of sunglasses with futuristic accents. A box.
In 2017, Rihanna received support from Kendo, the LVMH group's beauty brand incubator, which surrounded her with the best specialists in the business to launch her cosmetics brand Fenty Beauty. Again, big success. Which suggests that LVMH and Rihanna, it's not over. Proof, if needed, the announcement of a fundraiser of 115 million dollars for its lingerie brand Savage x Fenty (partly owned by LVMH) fell only a few minutes after the announcement of the cessation of Fenty activity.
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