Louis Vuitton (LVMH)

Louis Vuitton was born in 1821 in Anchay, a small village in the Jura mountains of eastern France. At 14, he decided to travel to Paris to seek his fortune. Unable to afford transport, he walked — a journey of approximately 400 kilometres that took two years, during which he worked odd jobs along the way. He arrived in Paris in 1837 and became an apprentice to Monsieur Maréchal, a box-maker and packer who prepared luggage for wealthy clients travelling by carriage and later by train.

Vuitton opened his own luggage workshop in Paris in 1854. His innovation was seemingly simple but commercially transformative: the flat-topped trunk. The rounded tops of conventional trunks had made sense when luggage was strapped to the outside of carriages. With the advent of railway travel, luggage was stored in flat-roofed compartments where trunks could be stacked. Vuitton's flat tops could be stacked; competitors' could not. He was appointed personal trunk-maker to Empress Eugénie of France within a year.

Louis Vuitton died in 1892. His son Georges introduced the iconic LV monogram canvas in 1896, designed explicitly to combat counterfeiting — which had become rampant as the brand became famous. The monogram was a pattern so distinctive and complex that it was difficult to reproduce convincingly. It worked, for a while. Louis Vuitton today employs a global team of lawyers and investigators dedicated entirely to fighting counterfeiting. The LV monogram is simultaneously the world's most recognised luxury symbol and the world's most counterfeited pattern. A bottle is sold every 30 seconds worldwide.

Louis Vuitton merged with Moët Hennessy in 1987 to form LVMH. Bernard Arnault, who had acquired a controlling stake in Christian Dior, manoeuvred into control of LVMH in 1989 in a corporate battle that the French press described as the arrival of "the wolf in cashmere." Arnault built LVMH into the world's largest luxury group, eventually owning over 75 brands including Dior, Givenchy, Bulgari, Tiffany, Celine, and Dom Pérignon. He became the richest person in the world at the peak of LVMH's valuation.

LVMH recorded revenue of €84.7 billion in 2024 — up just 1% organically from its €86 billion peak in 2023 — as the post-pandemic luxury spending boom faded, particularly in Asia. Profit from recurring operations fell 14% to €19.6 billion. Louis Vuitton continued to be the group's most profitable single brand, with analysts estimating its annual revenues exceeded €20 billion and margins above 40%. The first half of 2025 saw further headwinds — revenue fell 4% — as Chinese consumer confidence remained subdued and Japan retraced exceptional 2024 tourist spending. The boy who had walked 400 kilometres to Paris at age 14, making travel easier for wealthy people, had built the foundation of an empire that generated more revenue in a single year than many European countries' entire manufacturing sectors.