The luxury fashion conglomerate Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton is apparently in talks with Rihanna to create a luxury private label. After the high priestess of fashion (the nickname coined after the singer’s appearance at the Gala of the Met’s ‘Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination’ exhibition in a Martin Margiela mitre) shielded her eyes from paps with a pair of Fenty-engraved sunglasses, WWD reported that talks were underway.
Facts on the ground are bare. ‘It is understood her collection with LVMH will span ready-to-wear, leather goods and accessories, and could be released in tandem with her ninth album, expected out sometime later this year,’ read the article.
Likely, it will be called some variant of Robyn Rihanna Fenty’s surname (after all it’s the name of her current fashion line, lingerie range and make-up brand). Presumably, it will follow the rubric set out by Savage and her beauty line and be democratic, uninhibited by challenging the usual parameters that make the luxury world elitist. No doubt, it will also be ‘disruptive’ - another buzzword that follows the launch of every new Fenty venture. Will it disrupt the status quo with its production methods, its visual language or the styling of its launch? Only time will tell.
A foray into ‘ready-to-wear’ is not uncharted territory for the good ship Rihanna. In fact, she’s been lending her name and talent to a fashion line since 2016. Presumably, the luxury arm of her business empire will dig deeper into the design codes she’s already experimented with. If so, expect gargantuan coats, princessy ballgowns and shoes likely to hold the same sell-out power as her Puma pastel fur slides.
However, accessories are a new arena for Rihanna. She dipped her toe into footwear with a collaboration with Manolo Blahnik and fine jewellery with Chopard, but has yet to let her design prowess loose on eyewear, costume jewellery or handbags. Riffing on her personal style we half expect bags shrunk in size or transfigured into Jacquemus-style funhouse proportions, jewellery made for layering and sunglasses just like the pair that kickstarted this whole speculation game.
It's said that the collection will be ‘released in tandem with her ninth album’ and if Anti suggest anything to go by, this could be delayed, delayed, delayed and then leaked.
Rihanna is no stranger to being courted by the fashion industry. After years of sitting front row, the first time Rihanna did more than lend her presence to the luxury industry was in 2015 when she fronted a Dior sunglasses campaign. The following year she collaborated with Puma - a move that makes LVMH’s sniffing particularly unusual as the sports brand was owned by their arch rival Kering. By September 2017, Rihanna was back in the LVMH fold with the launch of Fenty Beauty in collaboration with Kendo (a subsidiary of the conglomerate).
While many celebrities have tried to pivot their popularity into the sale of chic clothes, few have done with it the brevity of Rihanna. Those that successfully have - The Olsen’s The Row, Victoria Beckham’s namesake label and Kanye’s Yeezy - have had to forsake democracy for exclusivity, be that in limited availability or pricing that limits their customer base to a niche elite. People call the Barbadian singer a ‘disruptor’ for producing underwear for a range of body sizes and make-up for a large variety of skin tones. These sound like depressingly small steps, but in the larger context of celebrity brands this may have radically moved the needle.
With 14 no1 singles on the Billboard 100 charts and over 67 million Instagram followers, the question remains, is this another string to LVMH’s bow or Rihanna’s?