LVMH relies on films and series to promote its brands

The luxury giant will create a company dedicated to promoting its brands through partnerships with the entertainment industry, a new sign that the boundaries between luxury, fashion, series and cinema are blurring. Called “22 Montaigne Entertainment” in reference to the group's Parisian headquarters, the new entity will be led by Antoine Arnault, son of Bernard Arnault and vice-chairman of the board of directors of the Christian Dior SE holding company which controls LVMH, and the director of LVMH North America, Anish Melwani.

They will work in partnership with the company Superconnector Studios, specializing in the link between the world of big brands and the entertainment industry, in Hollywood and elsewhere. The new company will “coordinate ties with the entertainment industry on behalf” of the group’s more than 75 houses by “collaborating with key creators, producers and distributors” to “co-develop, co-produce and co-finance” productions. The company will “rely” in particular on “successful initiatives” such as the documentary “Inside the Dream”, devoted to behind the scenes of the high jewelry house Bulgari, broadcast on Prime Video, explains LVMH in a press release.

This is about “formalizing our approach to promoting our brands through entertainment formats,” commented Anish Melwani, quoted in the press release. “There is a demand” for collaborations with the group’s brands and “we are doing and have done things”. But “we were not organized”, he detailed to the media Deadline, launching an appeal to audiovisual professionals who would be “interested in telling the stories of each house”.

Jae Goodman and John Kaplan, founders of Superconnector Studios reacted in the press release “We are ready to share the mission and vision of 22 Montaigne Entertainment with Hollywood”. LVMH's ambitions to further conquer the world of series, cinema and podcasts reflect the increasingly frequent links between luxury and entertainment. Fashion shows are nothing new, particularly for LVMH group brands like Dior or Louis Vuitton. Last summer, the first fashion show-event of musician, producer and stylist Pharrell Williams for Louis Vuitton, after having been appointed artistic director, was noted for the presence of numerous stars: the singer and businesswoman Rihanna and the singer Beyoncé and her husband, rapper Jay-Z, who gave a concert.

A decade after seeing its creator embodied twice in the same year on screen, by Pierre Niney and Gaspard Ulliel, the Yves Saint Laurent house, which belongs to Kering, a competitor of LVMH, became in 2023 the first luxury brand to found his own production company. Still in the Kering group, the Gucci family was given a film, “House of Gucci”, with Lady Gaga, Adam Driver, Al Pacino and Jared Leto. And Artémis, the holding company of the Pinault family, announced last fall an agreement to take control of the American talent agency Creative Artists Agency (CAA), one of the largest in the world and present in entertainment and the sport.