LVMH to launch new fashion Maison with Rihanna

What do 67 million Instagram followers, a chart topping music career and beauty brand aimed at diversity give you? An LVMH-backed fashion brand if your name is Rihanna.

In unconfirmed reports, yet widely publicised from trade publication WWD to the New York Times, Robyn Rihanna Fenty is to have her own fashion Maison named after her surname, Fenty, if sources are correct. The new house will merge beauty, lingerie and fashion under one pillar, and likely accessories, if Rihanna's oversized Fenty spectacles worn last week were the signal of a new partnership.

For LVMH to back a celebrity-fronted Maison is big news for several reasons. The first, the company has not built a fashion house 'from scratch' since the 1980s, which was the Christian Lacroix label. Lacroix began as a couture house but later diversified into ready-to-wear, perfume and a slew of licensing collections. It wasn't a financial success, making losses throughout the LVMH-owned years. Rihanna may have several collections of lingerie and beauty under her hat, but in terms of output and company structure, does not operate like other LVMH portfolio brands.

Not a trained designer

Second, Rihanna is no designer. Granted she is creative and has a vision and one would assume possesses astute management skills, but she is neither a tailor, designer or stylist by trade. Put Rihanna in a room with a sketch pad and pencil and you are not likely to see the birth of a collection along the calibre of John Galliano, Phoebe Philo or Alber Elbaz. The latter two being unemployed without any association to a large fashion house.

This brings to the fore the power of celebrity and those 67 million instagram followers. A designer background, as we all know, is largely irrelevant. LVMH has the financial and operational prowess to make all the loose angles come together because it knows a Maison with Rihanna as its face will shift product.

The first luxury brand headed by a woman of colour

Thirdly, Rihanna will be LMVH's first brand headed by a woman of colour. After the appointment of Virgil Abloh at Louis Vuitton, the pool of designers fronting luxury companies goes beyond the Central Saint Martins and Parson School of Design archetypes. Inclusivity and diversity are slowly creeping into traditional and heritage brands as they acknowledge the power has shifted to the mindset of the consumer.

While Rihanna has previously been the face of Dior, a creative director of Puma, and associated with a host of other fashion campaigns, she has never been affiliated with just one brand. This has been her strength, because she hasn't served fashion, rather it has served her.

Let's see if a new fashion empire will emerge.

Photo credit: Rihanna Fenty, source Fenty Beauty website