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The revamp of LVMH’s top creative and executive management is far from over and will last well into next year, several sources with first-hand knowledge of the matter say. Together with his new strongman, Group Managing Director Stéphane Bianchi, who is increasingly feared internally, LVMH CEO and controlling shareholder Bernard Arnault is reorganizing the luxury group he started building 40 years ago.

There are so many brands now at LVMH – more than 80 – and so many changes afoot that it’s tough to keep track. The current high level of turnover of executives and designers at LVMH is unprecedented, and it’s happening at a time when the luxury industry is battling its worst downturn in recent history.

The industry leader is not alone in going through a difficult leadership transition phase. Most major fashion and luxury groups are dealing with the same issue. At OTB, doors have been revolving among CEOs in the past 18 months, as described in Miss Tweed’s Owl column on Friday. Kering has changed the structure of its top management in the past year and a half, as well as the leadership of Gucci earlier this year and Saint Laurent and Balenciaga last month.

Chanel is expected to announce this week or next the appointment of its new designer, Matthieu Blazy, who resigned as creative director of Kering’s Bottega Veneta a few weeks ago, as Miss Tweed was first to report. British designer Louise Trotter, now at Carven and ex-Lacoste, is said to be a frontrunner to replace Blazy at Bottega Veneta.

At Chanel, more than a dozen veteran managers have left or been pushed into early retirement since the arrival of CEO Leena Nair in January 2022. Once Blazy joins, you can expect more organizational reforms at the world’s second-biggest brand after Louis Vuitton.

The leadership of Richemont has also changed this year and more moves are expected, as Miss Tweed reported last week.

At LVMH, the current merry-go-round of executives is part of Arnault’s plan to rejuvenate his executive team and prepare his own succession by giving his children more say in the group’s affairs.

One of the first major changes likely to happen next year is that Dior Couture, which is run as a standalone company, is set to become part of the Fashion Group, the entity that manages all of LVMH’s fashion brands except for Dior Couture and Louis Vuitton. These include Celine, Fendi, Loewe, Kenzo, Loro Piana and Patou.

This move is not designed to better run Dior Couture. It is to enable Delphine Arnault, 49, to take the executive reins of the Fashion Group and move sideways from CEO to Chairman of Dior Couture, several sources close the group said.

“Arnault realizes that Delphine is struggling at Dior,” one of these sources said. “Putting her at the helm of Fashion Group is the next logical step for her. It’s also part of Arnault’s plan to give his children more power and put them in key positions to test their leadership and management skills.”

Delphine’s strength is managing designers and spotting talent, not running a big company like Dior Couture. She was previously deputy CEO there, before joining Louis Vuitton in 2013 as vice president in charge of the brand’s products. Dior Couture’s sales have been down this year after several years of impressive growth. The brand has raised prices significantly in the past few years, but less so than its sister brand Louis Vuitton and rival Chanel.

In the current downturn, customers have become reticent to splurge on overpriced handbags, the main source of profit for brands like Dior, Louis Vuitton and Chanel. Most of Dior Couture’s revenues are made with a few best-selling handbags, such as the Tote and the Lady Dior.

Bringing Dior Couture into the Fashion Group was a plan first mooted in 2022 – again to give somebody a new job, not to better run the French brand.

Originally, Dior Couture CEO Pietro Beccari was supposed to become head of Fashion Group as a reward for having driven unprecedented growth at the brand. Two years ago, Beccari was being wooed by Kering, which was interested in potentially giving him Gucci, industry sources said. He had threatened to leave if Arnault did not give him something bigger to run.

However, just when that handover was supposed to take place, Michael Burke could no longer run Louis Vuitton as he was in the process of losing his wife and needed time off. Arnault had to find somebody quickly to replace Burke at the helm of his biggest brand. That’s why he named Beccari CEO of Louis Vuitton in January 2023.

If Delphine takes over the Fashion Group, it will mean that the division’s incumbent CEO Sidney Toledano, 73, will finally be able to retire. He nearly did this year but was quickly called back. In February, Michael Burke returned to work for LVMH as CEO of Fashion Group but abruptly left the job in April after an internal dispute. Hence, Toledano had to pick up the baton. He had made no secret about the fact that the was not ready to retire and was more than happy to keep going.

This was one of the most surreal episodes at LVMH this year. According to the group’s website, Burke, one of Arnault’s closest associates, is still CEO of Fashion Group and a member of the executive committee, and Toledano is no longer in charge of anything. Yet he’s the one handling all of the group’s major designer hires and changes at the moment. You have Pierpaolo Piccioli, formerly of Valentino, who’s being hired for Fendi, and Jonathan Anderson, who is expected to become Dior Couture’s new womenswear creative director next year, replacing Maria Grazia Chiuri.

“Once all the designer contracts have been sorted, then it will be a good time for Delphine to take over the Fashion Group,” one source close to LVMH said.

As part of his ambition to put his children in key positions, Arnault last month appointed his second son, Alexandre, 32, as deputy CEO of the Moët Hennessy wines and spirits division. Alexandre had been looking after Tiffany & Co.’s marketing and products since 2021. He was keen to return to France after the birth of his first son last year and wanted to be closer to the center of power that is Paris. Alexandre is in competition with his two younger brothers –Frédéric, 29, and Jean, 26. The three young men are jockeying to stand out and prove themselves with the hope of succeeding their father one day.

Fendi also has changes on the cards that go beyond hiring a new designer. Pierre-Emmanuel Angeloglou, Fendi’s CEO since May, may have to move on next year as he has not lived up to expectations. A search for his replacement is well under way, several sources close to LVMH said.

“People internally know that Angeloglou is not up to the task, but you cannot blame him, he’s never led a fashion brand before,” one of the sources said. Angeloglou joined Louis Vuitton in 2019 as director for fashion and leather goods, as well as strategic missions, according to his LinkedIn profile. Previously, he spent more than two decades at L’Oréal, where his final role was global brand president of L’Oreal Paris. Angeloglou left L’Oréal to be in fashion, but he may return to beauty in the end.

If Delphine Arnault takes over the Fashion Group, the brand will need a new CEO. That person could be Véronique Courtois, an LVMH veteran who is currently CEO of Dior Beauté. Previously, Courtois ran Guerlain and worked for Christian Dior Couture as marketing director. “Véronique is very respected by Bernard Arnault, she has his ear,” one source said. “She has a clear vision and understands this industry very well.” She’s also in the good books of Delphine Arnault.

“Delphine and Véronique get along very well,” a senior industry source said. “That’s a huge asset for Véronique.” Courtois is said to manage Christian Dior Beauté with an iron fist and has little time for Stéphane Rinderknech, who is technically her superior as head of LVMH’s Beauty division and well as the group’s Hospitality unit. Christian Dior Beauté generates more than 80 percent of the profits of LVMH’s Beauty unit.

According to several sources with first-hand knowledge of the matter, Courtois barely listens to what Rinderknech has to say during meetings and sometimes does not even show up at the meetings he organizes. “She likes to show him that she’s the one in charge of her empire and she will not let him meddle,” one of these sources told Miss Tweed on condition of anonymity.

If Courtois takes over Dior Couture, it would enable the brand to achieve its “One Dior” ambition of creating more harmony between the images of its perfume, cosmetics and make-up products with its fashion wares. Dior is the envy of the world in terms of size. In the past five years, its fashion business has grown tremendously, and its beauty sales as well.

Courtois’s move to Dior Couture would leave the CEO seat vacant at Dior Beauté. Angeloglou would be a good candidate for that job, internal sources say. “He left L’Oréal to work in fashion,” one said. “He may not want to work in beauty, but in the end he may not have much of a choice.”

Last month, there was speculation that Rinderknech would leave his job as head of the Beauty division and give his seat to Laurent Boillot, who was head of Hennessy but had to leave as part of the Moët Hennessy reorganization unveiled last month. LVMH’s outgoing CFO, Jean-Jacques Guiony, will become CEO of that division next year, with Alexandre Arnault as No. 2.

Boillot had previously hoped to get this job but he did not – in yet another miss for him. Two to three years ago, he had been told he had a chance to become CEO of the Beauty unit. In the end, LVMH picked Rinderknech instead, spending several million euros to poach him from L’Oréal. For example, LVMH had to compensate him for the loss of his stock options at the French cosmetics giant. “It’s quite possible that LVMH spent so much money to hire Rinderknech that it does not want to admit defeat,” one person close to the group said. “That’s why it’s keeping him for now.”

At meetings this week, Rinderknech showed no sign of weakness, that person said, adding, “It looks like he is sitting firmly in his seat for the moment.”

Rinderknech also has the full backing of LVMH’s new HR supremo Maud Alvarez-Pereyre, who replaced Chantal Gaemperle. After holding the job for 17 years, Gaemperle was brutally sacked last month and escorted to the door by security guards, as Miss Tweed reported.

Alvarez-Pereyre, who is close to Rinderknech’s sister, helped him join LVMH, as Miss Tweed previously reported. She is tough to bypass as, like her predecessor Gaemperle, she knows a lot about what the group’s executives have been up to. Alvarez-Pereyre took part in internal investigations of members of the group’s executive committee and other senior managers, sources close to the group said. Hence, getting rid of Rinderknech will not be quick and easy, as initially expected two weeks ago.

When LVMH announced the leadership changes at Moët Hennessy and Boillot was forced out as CEO, the group said that his new functions would be disclosed at a later date. Several sources said that Boillot was fed up with being promised jobs that he never got and was considering leaving the group. That would be a huge loss. Boillot has a big fan base at LVMH. The French group declined to comment for this report.

Another plan under study is to create separate watch and jewelry divisions. Jean Arnault, who is helping Louis Vuitton develop its watch business, is said to be a big fan of that idea. He’s passionate about watches and increasingly becoming part of Switzerland’s watchmaking landscape and close-knit horological circles. Jean Arnault enjoys taking part in public talks about watchmaking and hobnobbing with master watchmakers and entrepreneurs. He may be only 26, but he could eventually become head of LVMH’s watch division if it was created. LVMH’s watches are currently being supervised by Frédéric Arnault, Jean’s older brother. Frédéric, whose experience has been mainly in watches, has long said that he would like to work in fashion. Until earlier this year, he had been CEO of TAG Heuer for four years.

Frédéric may be given the reins of a fashion brand such as Celine or Loewe. Celine has just hired a new designer – Michael Rider, coming from Ralph Lauren. With the expected departure of Jonathan Anderson from Loewe to Dior, Loewe’s creative directorship will have to change as well.

Several industry sources said that Anderson could be replaced at Loewe by Guillaume Henry, who has been trying to resuscitate Patou with small budgets and has become increasingly frustrated about the lack of means allocated by the group to Patou. Henry is a talented designer who has done a great job building Patou with very feminine and joyful silhouettes. Previously, he did wonders at Nina Ricci with ultra-chic sensual dresses. Fashion specialists and headhunters believe he would be a great fit for Loewe.

It looks like this round of musical chairs is going to last well into 2025, as many of these organizational, executive and creative director changes are due to take place next year. The merry-go-round has not stopped spinning. Stay tuned.