LVMH’s Tiffany Flagship Store Opening in New York: A Star-Studded Affair

It was a bit like the gala before the gala, that of the Metropolitan Museum organized on Monday 1^is May by the patroness of Vogue, Anna Wintour. In this last week of April, like all of New York, Anna Wintour rushed to the inauguration of the renovated Tiffany store on the V^e Avenue, a stone’s throw from Central Park. A ribbon cutting, Wednesday April 26 in the morning, with the Israeli actress Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman). Thirty influencers, models of all nationalities, covered in jewelry lent by Tiffany, took selfies in front of the windows for their hundreds of thousands of followers. The mayor of New York, Eric Adams, held back by interminable budget negotiations, had to cancel but, disappointed, he had sought to postpone the inauguration.

Owner Bernard Arnault, founding boss of LVMH, was present in New York, but he did not appear on Wednesday, leaving his children present, Antoine and especially Alexandre, 30, Tiffany’s number two, to put himself forward. On the other hand, Mr. Arnault was there Thursday evening for the big evening with 800 guests who tasted the champagne Ace of Spades, by rapper Jay-Z, “more expensive than Dom Perignon”, says a connoisseur.

Among Bernard Arnault’s guests were the Wall Street billionaires, Stephen Schwartzman (Blackstone) and Leon Black (ex-Appolo, deposed since the #metoo scandals), the sculptor Jeff Koons, the footballer Ronaldo, the mayor of New York finally released, or rapper Pharrell Williams and so many celebrities that the over-50s may not know. Tiffany had treated her guests to a Katy Perry concert and planned to invite select guests to dinner over the weekend. In New York, we love success and money. But you can never be too careful: a bit shocked by the invasion of the headquarters on Avenue Montaigne in Paris by demonstrators, LVMH has reinforced its security protocols in the United States.

The American dream

A triumph for Bernard Arnault, who had bought the American company for 15.8 billion dollars (around 14.2 billion euros) in 2021, after laborious negotiations to save a few hundred million dollars. According to Arnault, Tiffany’s operating profit doubled to $1 billion (on estimated revenue of $5.1 billion).

Its LVMH group, the first European capitalization, has just crossed the threshold of 500 billion dollars. Its former rival, the group of François Pinault, Kering, is left behind with 80 billion dollars in capitalization. Thanks to this stock market boom, Mr. Arnault dethroned American entrepreneurs Elon Musk (Tesla) and Jeff Bezos (Amazon), to become with his family the richest man in the world with a fortune of more than 238 billion dollars according to Forbes.

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