Louis Vuitton is the most valuable luxury fashion brand in the world, and its CEO, Bernardino is also the second wealthiest man on the planet with a net worth of around 180 billion dollars. Looking at the company's success today, you would never guess that it was started by a man who was homeless during his teenage years, had no education, and slept in a forest.
Louis Vuitton is a true "rags to riches" story, but the company would also be subject to a hostile takeover, countless lawsuits, and a host of other controversies. This is the insane story of Louis Vuitton and how a tiny family business evolved into one of the world's largest. Louie's father, Xavier, was a Miller and farmer, while his mother, Corrine, made hats to help make some extra cash.
There are no records showing that Louis ever received an education. The nearest school was in a village six miles away, and it's believed he worked full-time on the family farm without learning how to read or write.
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Louis's Early Life: Did He Enjoy Lavish Lifestyle In His Childhood?
Louis would have been working in the fields every day from dusk to dawn just to make enough food to help feed his family. Needless to say, the Batons were struggling financially, and young Louis was born into a situation that should have doomed him to never have a bright future, and then things got much worse. Louie's mother died when he was just 10 years old, and his father quickly remarried another woman, but Louie's new stepmother was incredibly controlling and manipulative towards him, and he constantly got into fights with her, so when he was just 13 years old, he ran away from home with plans to go to Paris. He slipped out in the middle of the night without even saying goodbye.
There was just one problem, however: Louie's new stepmother, Paris, was 225 miles away, and Louis had no money or food, so he was forced to walk along dirt roads most nights. He slept in the woods with an empty stomach and just a cloak to keep him warm. Every time he ran into a new village, he would do odd jobs in exchange for food or coins, but there was no money left over for housing, so he continued to sleep in the woods or wherever he could find shelter for the night through these various odd jobs Louis was able to pick up skills from the craftsman, and he learned how to work with metal. Stone, fabric, and wood. This collection of various skills would later transform his life, but at this rate, travel was incredibly slow; it took him three years to reach Paris, France.
How Was Louis Vuitton Started?
Not long after he arrived in Paris, Louis was able to work as an apprentice box maker for Packer. Box makers would make custom-sized boxes for clients and pack and unpack them whenever a client was about to go on a trip. This job allowed him to meet many people from the upper class who were looking for custom-made luggage for their travels, and Louis worked here for several years, learning the craft and working as hard as he could. In fact, in 1851, the Empress of France became a customer and took notice of his craftsmanship; he was so good that she appointed him as her personal box-maker and packer, a position that most box makers hold today. This would be the highest honor any box maker and Packer for most would receive, and after working as hard as he did, she appointed him as her personal box-maker and Packer for most box makers.
This would be the highest honor. Louis had noticed a major flaw in the luggage of the day: all of the boxes were made of leather and had rounded dome-shaped tops so that rain would roll off the top of the luggage. The major issue was that it was impossible to stack them, so a Packers employee had to carry the boxes one by one. Louis began experimenting with different materials to use instead and found that canvas was lighter, more durable, and more water resistant, which meant the trunks could have flat tops instead.
This made everything more efficient, as it was now possible to stack them up in a pile and pack multiple trunks simultaneously, and they were also more compact. Louie's new suitcase design brought on the dawn of modern-day luggage at this point. Louis had already built up his professional reputation and connections to the upper class, so it was a huge success once he launched his new luggage line.
He even created a Louis Vuitton catalog so the customers could look at the products that he had available and have them made before sending them to their homes within two years of creating his new suitcases. They were considered an elegant and must-have accessory amongst the wealthy as they became a status symbol. The brand became so popular that he received orders from around the world.
Rise of Louis Vuitton
He even began receiving orders from as far away as Egypt in 1859. He made enough profit to hire a team of craftsmen to help fulfill orders. He opened Traveling was no longer a hobby exclusive to rich people from all walks of life who needed high-quality luggage. It would seem as though Louis had made it and would go on to succeed for the rest of his life, but unfortunately, that was not the case. France was heading to war, and tragedy was about to strike again for Louis Vuitton before we got to the next chapter.
War Made It Hard for Louis Vuitton
In 1870, when Louis was 49 years old, and the Franco-Prussian War broke out, he had to flee his home and live in a cramped shelter with thousands of others. Food supplies were extremely low, and he feared for his life when Louis could finally return to his shop in 1871. Everything was destroyed, windows were smashed, equipment was stolen, and he had lost everything he'd worked so hard for but instead of giving up, he decided to use his savings to rebuild the business and vowed that it would be even better than it was before.
With so many people displaced from the war, there were far more empty shops available for rent throughout the city, so Louis Vuitton took advantage of this by opening his new shop in a much more wealthy aristocratic location in Louis continued to work at his new shop in Paris until his death when he was 70 years old, but his legacy was able to live on through his son George, who took over the family business.
Continuation Of Legacy?
George sought to expand the brand globally by opening a popular store in London. At this point, Louis Vuitton's luggage was so popular that many other box makers were beginning to make counterfeits, so in 1896, Georges Vuitton brought out the now iconic LV monogram to make it harder to copy. The LV was his father's initials in honor of the man who started the brand, but he also came up with the idea of adding a revolutionary new lock on the trunks that would make it impossible for thieves to pick. By the year 1900, the company had 100 employees and continued to grow year after year. By 1900, the company had 100 employees, and it continued to grow year after year.
By 1900, the company had 100 employees, and it continued to grow year after year. By 1900, all of the employees had been trained for a very long time in order to become expert box makers. Even today, Louis Vuitton is Louis Vuitton. By 1900, all of the In 1925, Coco Chanel commissioned a small dome-shaped handbag. At first, this was a design she personally came up with, and it was just for her.
However, it would go on to be mass-produced and given the name Alma. This was massively successful, so Louis Vuitton decided to make more small leather bags like the Keepall Speedy. George Vuitton died in 1936, and the company was then passed over to his son Gaston Louis; however, Gaston took over the company at a very difficult time because, in just a few years, France was once again heading to war during World War II. Contracts were canceled, and Gaston was forced to shut down the Louis Vuitton factory. Paris was under siege again, and the only way Gaston Baton could save the business was to collaborate with Natsu Germany.
Author Stephanie Bon Vinci wrote a book called Louis Vuitton: A French Saga. During her research of the company archives, she asked if she could see World Wars I and II records. Almost immediately, the representatives from the company tried to avoid showing her the information. They claimed that all of the documents from 1930 to 1945 were destroyed in a fire, but after doing a lot of digging into other historical documents, Stephanie discovered that Louis Vuitton was able to open a glamorous ground-floor shop front in the hotel to park cars throughout the Nazi regime as they collaborated with them. Meanwhile, several other brands were forced to shut down because they refused to cooperate with the Germans; several other brands were forced to shut down because they were foreign. Foreign passed away in 1968.
Force Take Over By Bernard
A foreign object passed away in an heirloom. Bernard secretly bought 43 percent of the shares of Louis Vuitton and got support from the Moet and Hennessy families to gain more power in LVMH. Henry felt he'd been betrayed by the man he'd brought in to help him, and so he took Bernard to court, demanding that he no longer have the majority stake in Louis Vuitton, but the courts ultimately sided with Bernard. Henry was so angry about being backstabbed by his friend that he decided to quit working for Louis Vuitton completely. Now, for the first time in nearly a hundred years, no one from the Baton family was involved with the brand. After all of Bernard's hostile takeover drama, Louis Vuitton's sales began to crash.
Journalists were no longer covering the brand. For a while, it looked as though the company might fail. However, Bernard knew how to turn the fortune of the company around. Louis Vuitton made a comeback when it began collaborating with several fashion designers during its 100th-anniversary collection. Big names like Vivian Westwood and Isaac Mizra all created their own take on the iconic LV monogram logo during the Gates Buffett, but Bernardino is definitely the least known as he prefers to stay out of the spotlight.
Known As Wolf in Kashmir
What we do know is that he has such a ruthless reputation in the business that he is known as the "wolf in Kashmir," which is why today, LVMH has over 70 different brands it owns through all of the acquisitions and mergers that Bernard has pulled off. This one company owns so many of the most luxurious brands in the world, and yet it all started with a broke, homeless teenager [Music] In the modern world, Louis Vuitton continued to expand its brand with new colorful styles that resonated with a younger audience. In 1997, Marc Jacobs became the creative director; he designed the first ready-to-wear line and also created the popular monogram Vernis line of handbags. Marc Jacobs also expanded LV into watches, jewelry, and sunglasses, although he eventually would move on from Louis Vuitton and come out with his own line of clothing and accessories. Of course, the company is not without its issues.
Louis Vuitton has an entire team of lawyers searching for copyright infringement, and they don't hesitate to sue someone if they believe they're copying the brand logo. They've even sued Google for search results and advertisements leading people to fake bags. Google won the case, though, arguing they can't control what their users put on the internet. Louis Vuitton has also gone on to collaborate with brands like Supreme, which has expanded its demographic like never before. Believe it or not, Louis Vuitton actually sued Supreme for copying their logo until they realized how profitable a collaboration would be.
Louis Vuitton Supreme items resell for a small fortune. For example, the leather trunk is on sale for 125 000 dollars, and even an LV Supreme hoodie is over five thousand dollars. Of course, the counterfeit problem Louis Vuitton has had since the early days of the business is still an issue for the brand today. They estimate that they lose hundreds of millions of dollars to counterfeit versions of their products yearly. However, even after being in business for 168 years, they don't seem to be slowing down anytime soon.
Louis Vuitton, You can find a Louis Vuitton in nearly every major city around the globe, but what do you think of Louis Vuitton? Do you think it's overpriced by all the hype, or do you feel that the quality of Louis Vuitton excellent?
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