This just in! Gabriela Hearst LLC announced that LVMH Luxury Ventures took a minority investment in the label, which designer and CFDA member Gabriela Hearst launched in 2015 around core values of care, detail, tradition, and purpose. Think luxury with a conscience.
The terms of the investment, made through an entity within the LVMH Group that focuses on investing in emerging but already iconic brands, were not disclosed. LVMH Luxury Ventures investments range from €2 million to €15 million, or $2.3 million to $17.2 million at current exchange rate.
The move is significant on several levels. For LVMH, it’s the first investment in an American fashion brand since Donna Karan and Marc Jacobs. If there’s been a sense that LVMH has struggled to understand American fashion – in a rare move, it divested Donna Karan in 2016 – the investment in Gabriela Hearst is a definite vote of confidence in American creativity.
The investment could also fill the void left by Phoebe Philo at Celine for women in need of a luxurious and sophisticated collection to satisfy their sartorial needs.
Hearst’s clothes, as she put it herself, “don’t scream for attention, but show a presence.”
Nee Perezutti, Uruguay-born Hearst modeled in Europe for a bit and made her way to New York, where she launched the Candela contemporary brand that originated in Brooklyn with silk-screened T-Shirts.
For her own namesake label, she focused on uncompromised luxury. In just three years, Hearst has made her mark on the New York fashion scene with impressive collections. She also recently opened a beautiful store on the corner of 77th Street and Madison Avenue, at the Carlyle Hotel. The store exudes the same sense of luxury that her clothes do – sophisticated, elegant, understated. It’s the kind of space that women in the know frequent.
Sustainability is at the core of her new boutique, and also within the collection. Hearst recently told us how it’s something she is “personally passionate about, so it plays into my professional life. I have a sense of urgency because we do have between 10-12 years, based on recent reports, to try and revert what we can preserve.”
We look forward to what’s to come, Gabriela!
