When the Discreet Overtakes the Grand Part 2

A follow up to my story about how Hermès didn’t beat LVMH with size - a roadmap for reclaiming cultural sovereignty in a world where algorithms dictate desire

When “The Discreet Overtakes the Grand” was shared to my entourage, it sought to decode a moment that appeared, on the surface, financial: the rise of Hermès over LVMH, but which, upon closer inspection, revealed a deeper shift in the economy of luxury: a revaluation of exclusivity, of authorship, of cultural sovereignty.

Many responded with enthusiasm, some with critique, but most with a shared question:

"You’ve described the shift. But what should be done?"

So, if the first piece was a provocation, this one is a proposal. An attempt to articulate that path forward for LVMH and its peers over the next decade. A benevolent one. Because the situation at hand is not a threat to be feared, it’s a historic opportunity to be seized. First, let’s set the record straight: Hermès didn’t "beat" LVMH. It reminded the world that in luxury, stillness and a quiet voice are worth and can move more than sheer scale and visibility. And it showed that narrative sovereignty, coherence, and exclusivity are not nostalgic values, they are performance drivers for this new world.

P.S. You can also listen to the podcast about this article here:

As Monsieur Arnault himself stated a few days ago at the LVMH Annual Shareholder Meeting: “What matters most is having the greatest desirability for the long term and refuse la banalisation” He’s right to point us towards what may now be the most urgent challenge facing luxury: how to remain desirable in a world that overwhelms, equalizes, and automates everything.

This is addressed to the luxury industry as a whole, and also, more directly and respectfully, to the leadership that has defined its modern contours, first among them, Monsieur Bernard Arnault. Because what is at stake now is not market share. It is the preservation of cultural capital in a world that is actively flattening meaning. Tariffs, content saturation, algorithmic distribution models: these are not temporary constraints. They are signs of a new epistemology of value, in which luxury must reassert its singularity, or risk being absorbed into the logic of the Big Tech platforms it once kept at bay. Arnault said it beautifully “And that's why, to have the best qualities, you have to avoid commoditization”

And to clarify, this is not a critique of LVMH, quite the contrary. It’s a call for continuation. A signal that what once made LVMH great, its obsession with sovereignty, its takeover of the entire customer journey and value chain starting with raw materials, its ability to turn ritual and heritage into value, must now be reimagined for a digital and cultural battlefield.

Legacy and Leverage – A Strategic Path Forward

In the 1990s, Monsieur Arnault was among the rare industrialists who understood that true luxury required total control. He reshaped the global luxury industry by insisting on sovereignty, not just over product, butover distribution, brand codes, raw materials, creative design, aesthetics, customer experience and retail environments.

While others chased volume through department stores and third-party Big Tech retailers like Farfetch, Net-a-Porter, he chose to own the experience end-to-end, full verticalization, he chose authorship. He refused Amazon, refused discounting, and resisted the flattening effects of ubiquity. He didn’t just protect value, he built an empire of desire.

Coincidentally, his good friend, Steve Jobs, around the same time came back to Apple and did the exact same thing, but with one minor difference, he also created an exclusive Apple ecosystem for the products to live, thrive and become the most desirable in the world. We’ll get back to that later because there’s a lesson for luxury.

And then, when the digital revolution started in the 2000s, LVMH did what was expected, but what Hermès (and Chanel for that matter), did not. They joined the algorithmic world of Big Tech and suddenly shifted from exclusivity and control to omnipresence, saturation, continuous collaborations with every viral trend from Nike to NFTs. Through that digital transformation, they lost something important: their ability to create desirability through exclusivity, craftmanship and quiet storytelling.

Today, the same strategic instinct is needed, but on a different front. The threat is not distribution. It is distraction. Not pricing pressure, but narrative dilution. Louis Vuitton and Dior no longer compete with Gucci or Prada, they compete with the new purveyors of culture, Big Tech and their infinite content on the screen: addictive Netflix series, TikTok trends, Instagram viral stories and the infinite loop. They pay billions to play in Big Tech’s algorithm.

The danger is subtle but existential: when luxury is submerged in the same stream as mass content, it loses its exclusivity, its scarcity, and eventually, its soul: core to its ability to create desire.

This moment: where Hermès surpasses LVMH in market value, where tariffs rise, where Big Tech platforms dominate, and where Four Seasons now partners with HBO to turn luxury storytelling into high-ticket cultural tourism with The White Lotus, should not be viewed as a threat. It is a signal. A gift of lucidity. And it calls for action not just from LVMH, but from all luxury Maisons that believe in the long game of desirability.

Once again, the question is: who gets to frame the story?

Here are four imperatives that will define the next golden age of luxury:

1. Reclaim Narrative Sovereignty

Luxury is built not on features, but on storytelling, and today, they no longer own the stage. Luxury storytelling today is shaped, distributed, narrated and filtered by Big Tech platforms that are not designed for the business of luxury. Netflix, Meta, TikTok: these are powerful ecosystems, but their logic is not aligned with the values of exclusivity, reverence, or ritual. In this new world, luxury must remain authored, not outsourced. The Maisons that lead tomorrow will not be the most visible, but the most intentional. This means choosing when, where and how to appear. Choosing tone over noise, depth over frequency. And above all, protecting the ritual around each image, word, and gesture. Exclusivity, mystique, and cadence are not liabilities, they are strategic moats. They build gravitas. They build desire. Even the stock market has shown us that these are more valuable than unlimited visibility.

The solution is not to withdraw, but to reclaim authorship and shape culture from within. Narrative sovereignty is not a slogan, it’s a form of soft power. It means that Maisons must invest in narrative infrastructures, cultural storytelling platforms, editorial ecosystems and visual production capabilities that are crafted with the same level of excellence as their physical products. Storytelling must return inside the Maisons, not remained outsourced or reactive.

2. Build a Cultural infrastructure

In the physical world, LVMH and its luxury peers have built temples of brand expression: flagship boutiques, hotels, cafes, vineyards, museums. But in the digital world, the equivalent is missing. There is no cultural infrastructure worthy of the gravity of luxury Maisons. Luxury cannot simply ride on Big Tech’s popular culture; it must have the tools to shape it on its own terms. The next frontier is not technological, but cultural. Maisons must begin to operate not only as maker of luxury products, but as forces of influence, as they were before and as Hermès has provided a Masterclass in. Back to Apple - the other Masterclass was provided over 15 years ago by Apple when they decided that their beautiful products alone cannot live in a tech-driven world controlled by others. So, they launched the Apple ecosystem, that today generates over $90 billion a year in revenue from streaming, news, fitness, photos, storage and opens a world of Apps - basically, Big Tech and consumers are paying Apple to be in their ecosystem. That’s how Apple’s undeniable desirability and influence works, surpassing every brand on the planet. The lesson for luxury: own the entire infrastructure - don’t rent it.

That influence, that capacity to tap into the world’s imaginary, requires architecture: the capacity not only to inspire in a borrowed voice, but to produce, commission and distribute meaning on their own terms, with precision, authorship and a clear aesthetic worldview. The creation of LVMH’s 22 Montaigne Entertainment marked a smart and thoughtful gesture in that direction, to which we must thank two astute protagonists at LVMH for spearheading it, an attempt to forge a bridge with the storytelling power of Hollywood (sadly but interestingly, not mentioned once during the entire 2-hour LVMH Shareholder meeting). It was a meaningful first signal. Yet the model adopted reflects a familiar pattern: entering culture through partnerships, on borrowed platforms, in someone else’s voice. It is participation, not authorship. Perhaps this is why Monsieur Arnault also declared at that same meeting “It was Einstein who said: you don't solve a problem with ideas that have already been used”. He’s right.

Luxury cannot rely on narrative outsourcing. What is needed now is not alignment with existing entertainment ecosystems, but the construction of its own cultural infrastructure, one that is fully owned, fully integrated with luxury Maisons ethos, end-to-end, and as meticulously shaped as the Maisons themselves.

This means developing in-house creative studios, commissioning original formats, and curating immersive experiences that are not simply branded, but authored: deeply, intentionally, and with the same savoir-faire these Maisons possess. It also means cultivating the talent such as writers, directors, designers, archivists, who understand both heritage and storytelling - better than Hollywood or Silicon Valley.

Also, we speak a lot about the hardships of the aspirational clients in recent months who although huge in numbers, contribute less and less to the revenue streams of luxury Maisons. Monsieur Arnault brilliantly noted: “It is obvious that there are more potential customers in the aspirational part than in the affluent part”. For these aspirational clients, cultural content is not secondary, it’s primary. That’s why droves of them watch Emily in Paris, The White Lotus, Succession, Karl Lagerfeld’s Biopic or try to get a glimpse of the Met Gala and think Dame Anna Wintour is Miranda Priestly. They may not yet be able to afford a luxury product, but they seek connection. That connection must be designed, edited, protected. A digital cultural space can become a private salon, a place where the Maisons are not flattened by virality but elevated by meaning.

Only through these investments can Maisons rise above the noise and offer something no Big Tech can: an authored universe with timeless codes and a deliberate orchestration of their own mythology and storytelling.

3. Shift from scale to depth

More content, more campaigns, more exposure: these are not strategies. They are symptoms of an industry trying to keep pace with Big Tech platforms that don’t serve its essence. The future is not in multiplying messages, but in deepening meaning. In an age where everyone is talking, luxury must return to the discipline of curation, choosing what not to say is as important as what is said. That restraint is no longer a limitation; it is a strategy. Luxury must return to being felt. The question is no longer how many markets a product enters, but how long it lingers in the imagination. This requires fewer campaigns and more moments. Fewer metrics, more memory. It is not the amplification of message that matters, but the resonance of meaning.

None of these are easy. But they are within reach, especially for a group with LVMH’s Maisons heritage, talent, craft and entrepreneurial family leadership. If anyone can chart the next golden age of luxury, one not driven by algorithms, but by desire - it is Bernard Arnault, his family and the talented team working for them. With boldness, with elegance, and with the rarest currency of all: “savoir-faire rêver” is their motto in French for a reason, so please, LVMH, make us dream of your Maisons and luxury art de vivre once again.

4. Liberate Luxury Maisons from the grip of Big Tech

The current logic of reach, repetition, and relevance that compose the algorithms of Big Tech is not neutral, it is engineered for virality. Its logic shapes not only how we distribute luxury, but how we perceive it. And it is incompatible with the values that define luxury: craft, elevation, rituals, detail, exclusivity.

Desirability cannot be outsourced. It must be architected. And the algorithms of Meta, Google, and Netflix were not built for the codes of luxury. They were built to flatten culture into content. To win in this new era, LVMH and the industry must operate outside these constraints, not seek to beat the algorithm: but to render it irrelevant. They need to create systems that restore verticality, where Maisons speak not to everyone, but to someone, deeply.

This does not mean disconnecting from the world. It means reframing how, when and where you are seen by it. And that requires sovereignty. Not just in culture, retail experiences or manufacturing but also from Big Tech.

A last word for the Arnault family

LVMH possesses the greatest cultural capital in the global economy: the most storied Maisons, the finest craftsmanship, the deepest historical lineage. What’s missing is not product, not clicks, nor talent, but infrastructure and courage. Infrastructure to distribute its vision, not just its goods. And the courage to reclaim the storytelling and narrative with the same force you once reclaimed distribution, manufacturing, and verticality.

This is that moment. To act not just for today’s margin, but for tomorrow’s memory. To create something that will make the next generation of luxury lovers dream again and secure your heritage for decades to come. Because luxury doesn’t sell products. It shapes culture.

And culture, when authored with in your own pen, becomes the most strategic investment of all.

That is how desire is reborn, Monsieur Arnault.

Original article, Part 1: