86 096
Fashion Jobs
RALPH LAUREN
Associate Manager
Permanent · HERSHEY
A & F
Abercrombie & Fitch - Assistant Manager, International Market Place
Permanent · HONOLULU
A & F
Hollister CO. - Brand Representative, Galleria at Tyler
Permanent · RIVERSIDE
FOOT LOCKER
Director of Safety (Supply Chain)
Permanent · CAMP HILL
LEE
PT Keyholder, Estero, FL
Permanent · ESTERO
URBN
Free People: Merchandise Planning Manager
Permanent · PHILADELPHIA
URBN
Free People: Senior Merchandise Planner
Permanent · PHILADELPHIA
KOHLS
Operations Supervisor - Weekend Overnights
Permanent · EDGEWOOD
KOHLS
Full-Time Loss Prevention Officer
Permanent · SOUTH BURLINGTON
ADIDAS
Key Account Manager: Athletic Footwear
Permanent · PITTSBURGH
KOHLS
Full-Time Loss Prevention Supervisor
Permanent · GOSHEN
KOHLS
Full-Time Loss Prevention Supervisor
Permanent · NAPLES
KOHLS
Shift Leader/Operations Manager - Weekend Night Shift
Permanent · PATASKALA
AMERICAN EAGLE OUTFITTERS
Aerie - Merchandise Leader (Part-Time) - us
Permanent · POOLER
AMERICAN EAGLE OUTFITTERS
ae - Merchandise Leader (Part-Time) - us
Permanent · MURFREESBORO
AMERICAN EAGLE OUTFITTERS
Aerie - Merchandise Leader - us
Permanent · KAPOLEI
NAVY EXCHANGE
Buyer (Level i) - Beauty Care
Permanent · VIRGINIA BEACH
NAVY EXCHANGE
Buyer (Level i) - Pet
Permanent · VIRGINIA BEACH
GAP INC.
Asset Protection Service Representative - Harlem Usa
Permanent · NEW YORK
GAP INC.
Asset Protection Coordinator - Mount Vernon Plaza
Permanent · ALEXANDRIA
BANANA REPUBLIC
Associate Art Director, Photo Studio
Permanent · SAN FRANCISCO
ECCO
Third Keyholder
Permanent · SAN FRANCISCO
By
AFP
Translated by
Nicola Mira
Published
Nov 5, 2018
Reading time
3 minutes
Download
Download the article
Print
Text size

Alain Chevalier, one of the founders of the LVMH group, dies

By
AFP
Translated by
Nicola Mira
Published
Nov 5, 2018

On Sunday, the French President’s office announced the death of Alain Chevalier, 87, one of the two founders of the world’s number one luxury group, LVMH. Chevalier was a major industrialist who turned a champagne producer, in association with the Louis Vuitton group, into a leading international luxury group.


Alain Chevalier and Bernard Arnault - AFP


Alain Chevalier “put his intelligence and talent at the service of politics and industry and, through his vision and determination, he contributed to elevating France at the top of the luxury sector,” said the French President’s office in a press release, saluting Chevalier as “a visionary.”

In a message to the AFP agency, the LVMH group, currently encompassing 70 labels with 150,000 employees worldwide, hailed the “memory” of a “major industrialist.”

On Saturday, French daily paper Le Figaro reported that Chevalier died at his home in Megève, France, on November 1. Chevalier’s family indicated that the funeral service will be celebrated on Wednesday afternoon at the Saint-Clotilde basilica in Paris.

Chevalier was born on August 16 1931 in Algiers, where his family had lived since 1880. As the son of French colonialists in Algeria, “he was loyal to the last to the memory of his native land,” in the words of the President’s office. He studied law and political science before attending the prestigious ENA civil service school (as a member of the Vauban class), where he graduated in 1959.

An auditor at the national Court of Accounts, Chevalier worked in several roles within various ministries (Algerian Affairs, National Education and Industry), before leaving the civil service for private industry.

In 1970, Chevalier became the General Manager of Moët et Chandon, then France’s top champagne producer, with the goal of gradually transforming the long-established, Reims-based maison into a luxury goods group with a global reach. Working together with the company’s President Robert de Voguë, “things went very fast, we had all the luck,” said Chevalier in 1974.

Through a string of mergers and acquisitions (Hennessy cognac, the licence for the Christian Dior perfumes, the Roc cosmetics laboratories) Chevalier made the group a model of well-managed growth.

In 1987, to stave off a take-over threat, he merged the group, then called Moët Hennessy, with another luxury giant, Louis Vuitton, at the time headed by Henry Racamier, who died in 2003.

But this merger marked the end of the line for Chevalier’s managerial career. Indeed, he never held any shares, neither in Moët nor, later, in the LVMH group. Having no stake in LVMH, he was powerless to stop the advance of Bernard Arnault, who gradually became the group’s majority shareholder.

Management versus shareholders

Chevalier’s skill was management. “I had to stop working for several weeks, so great were the contrasts among shareholders,” he said when he left the group in 1989. “The time of the managers is past. Now, the shareholders are taking back control,” he added.

Moët Hennessy and Louis Vuitton, “which, already under [Chevalier’s] leadership, grouped together some of the most prestigious brands in the wine and spirits, fashion, perfumery and cosmetics industries, are wonderful ambassadors of French elegance and sophistication,” wrote the President’s office, adding that, “he was above all a man who believed in culture and freedom, loyal not simply to a person or party, but to what he believed was right and true.”

From 1979 to 1981, Chevalier was a board member of CNPF (the National Council of French Employers, later  replaced by the MEDEF employer federation) but he always refused to head it. In 1986, he also said ‘no’ to President Jacques Chirac, a fellow ENA student, who wanted him as Minister of Industry. Between 1989 and 1991, Chevalier was in charge of the Pierre Balmain fashion label.

Chevalier was fascinated by the history of ancient Rome, and was married and the father of four children.

Copyright © 2024 AFP. All rights reserved. All information displayed in this section (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the contents of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presses.