He very much cares what French people think about him. He believes he's created many jobs for France. The role of the French people is to criticize their government in some ways. Like, this is the culture of that country. So I think in the end, he probably regrets granting the interview. Welcome to the Powers That Be daily, Puck's podcast focused on the intersection of Wall Street, Washington, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood, and the players who run it all. I'm Peter Hamby. It's Tuesday, July 28th. Today, I'm joined by Lauren Sherman, who reports on a pair of stories roiling the fashion world in Paris. Le Monde just released a huge investigative series on billionaire Bernard Arnault, the secretive leader of LVMH, which apparently got under Arnault's skin so much that he joined X and suddenly became a poster. Lauren also tells me about an anonymous Instagram account that's tormenting Vogue France and why the regional versions of Vogue around the world are all under a microscope. We'll discuss all that and much more on today's episode of The Powers That Be. Introducing Intersectors, legal perspectives on global business, a podcast from White & Case. Hear partners with diverse legal perspectives across practices, industries, and jurisdictions discuss the complex legal, business, and geopolitical issues shaping markets worldwide. Subscribe to InterSectors, that's inter-S-E-C-T-O-R-S, and listen wherever you get your podcasts. The technology you choose to trust. 70% of the Fortune 100 trust CrowdStrike's leading AI native cybersecurity platform built to secure their business and the AI fueling their innovation. AI is changing the world. We're securing it. CrowdStrike, we stop breaches. Happy Tuesday everybody and welcome to the powers that be. I'm joined today by my erstwhile colleague, Lauren Sherman, who has not been on the show for a while because she moved to Paris. Hello, Emily. Emily. No, I know. It's too much. The Emily in Paris, like every. They must hate it over there. I think they, you know who hates it? The Americans who live there, which like, give me a break. That's some self-loathing psychology going on. They get very annoyed. I'm like, who cares? It's funny. It got, you know, my bigger concern is like the plot line not being correct, which we've discussed before. But I have had a couple of moments where I've been at like weird galas that are very French and they're like smoking and they're putting, they're lighting their cigarettes with candlesticks at Gala. And I'm like, this is my Emily in Paris moment, truly. Yeah, I don't want to reduce our mutual knowledge of fashion and the beautiful country of France just to the silly Netflix show. We do talk about it a lot, though. We do. Let's try to prove our smarts here because now you live there. We're going to talk about the state of play at Vogue, France. We're also going to talk about a big, splashy, multi-part series about the LVMH dynasty. That would be the Arnaud family that ran in Le Monde that, according to your piece in line sheet, was the talk of the town recently. And Bernard himself joined X to respond to it, which is just full of so many amusing storylines. You know, he initially did not join. He sent the note out via LVMH's X account. And then the response was so amazing from the likes of Bill Ackman congratulating him on this incredible, which the response was incredible. and we'll get into it, but that he was so grateful to the X community that he joined himself. You cannot make this up. This has been a great weekend for me. That's all I'll say. You have to work on the weekend. This is worth it. Even the billionaire class is not immune to the dopamine hits of social media, as this proves. Anyway, let's start with Vogue France. And by the way, before starting with Vogue France, we need to start with a Instagram account called boring.com, which I have not heard about. Oh, God. I went here. By the way, boring.com, you're kind of boring. Your Instagram is kind of boring. The vibe here, I think, is snark about fashion and culture and music. Some of it is like maybe they're getting little scoops like Dumois here and there. Anyway, I think this is what you were referencing in line sheet. They wrote, and by the way, this is all just, to me at least, anonymous. Maybe you know who runs it. I'm close to knowing who it is. They're getting freaked out. it's a side story yeah we'll discuss that another time so boring.com how could Condé Nast let Vogue decline this rapidly in such a short space of time the once most influential fashion publication in the world now feels so irrelevant that people can't even be bothered to talk about how shit the covers are anymore blah blah blah they just basically attack Vogue France I went and looked at the covers they're okay whatever I don't have that much of a palette. They seem fine to me. So they're dragging, as you write in line sheet, the head of editorial content in France for Condé Nast, for Vogue, Claire Thompson, Jean Veil. You checked in because it sort of seemed like she might get laid off and fired after this account posted this What the state of play over there Yeah I think the reason the account posted it is that they were hearing the things that then I learned I think look like these heads of editorial content are very complicated jobs You have to really fall in line because Anna Wintour is your boss, but you also have to kind of keep the culture of the region. So if you are the head of Vogue Italia, you need to keep the Italian-ness of it. The same thing with British Vogue, the same thing with Vogue Arabia or whatever. And I think with Vogue France, it's particularly complicated because Corrine Reutfeld and Emmanuel Alt, the two previous editors were extremely influential stylists and editors, and they were sort of seen as, you know, standing apart from Anna Wintour in many ways. Not that the editor, Edward Edwin Fould at British Vogue wasn't, but there's just something about French Vogue. It's its own thing, and it is very, and Italian Vogue for a long time too. I mean, all these things, they were regional heavyweights, and the globalization of the way Condé Nast works, it essentially has made them all sort of homogenized. And that is true. Like, the thing about this account, I think that this account is cowardice, and I don't like the anonymity, and I also, they are mean for no reason, like, to kind of go after Claire Thompson, in Johnville. Why? Like, have her last couple covers been that good? No. That sort of tone on the internet, by the way, feels very dated. It feels very like 2000s. And people are so earnest now and flattering. Maybe it's like nice to have some snark back on the scene, but this one just seems kind of mean. Yeah, it's too mean. Like, a lot of times, like, the stuff that was said in that post is not entirely wrong, but it's just like, how you say it and why are you targeting certain people. It just feels blah, but I was going to ignore that, nothing. And then in the following days, I heard from several sources like around Conde Nast, around different parts of the business, because Claire is an important stylist and works with a lot of different people that she was leaving. I talked to people close to her. I talked to people close to the Vogue camp, and I was told that she's not yet. Like whether or not she is, is another question and to be honest like i hope she doesn't leave she's interesting could the covers be better definitely so actually on that topic if you go to the comments of this post again attacking the vogue france covers and look they seem at least regionally distinctive there are you know french public figures on the cover models actresses whatever the latest issue is like a french riviera issue and it's shot in sort of this like hazy filter who's on the cover here adele Exarchopolis. Yeah, who is the most beautiful woman alive. I am obsessed with her. I was going to let you say that. It sounds better from you than me. I'm allowed to say that, yeah. Yeah, very good looking cover. Anyway, in the comments, people are talking about what are better examples of regional vogues, and they point to Vogue Portugal. I just went to look at Vogue Portugal. Very big, splashy covers. And by the way, for people listening who are like, you guys are just talking about covers, Lauren has educated me over the years that the cover is the thing. And maybe you know that if you watch Devil Wears Prada, Devil Wears Prada 2. But the cover sets the tone. The cover is the thing that gets publicity. It is a statement piece, obviously. So what other Vogue's out there are hitting home runs? None of them. This is the issue. They're all homogenized at the same cut and paste. I'm looking at this. The cover is not good. I'm sorry, Claire Thompson-Johnville. It's not a good cover. But she did have a lot of really good covers. She used to work with this stylist, Alistair McKim, who left, I think, like six months ago or something. And the two of them together did amazing covers. But I think, look, like, I thought that there was an amazing British Vogue cover that had one of the big Chanel models on it. And I think art direction for British Vogue is good. I used to work with the creative director there for like five minutes of business and fashion. He's super talented. And I thought I thought that cover was really nice. Generally, Vogue is not hitting home runs. I mean, the biggest home run was Anna Wintour and Meryl Streep on the cover of American Vogue, and that was not about the composition of the photo. It was about what Annie Leibovitz shot photo. It was about it got passed around. It was circulated. It's not like, you know, it's a cover, and I think I might have said this in the item, the Giselle cover of W Magazine, that's a cover. Like that is a cover. It was fantastic. I think to be honest, like to me, the challenge is, I mean, there are so many things. The job of head of editorial content requires something different than being an editor in chief. It's a brand manager. And so if you don't have the right people around you, that doesn't always translate. It makes it harder to you your job. There was a recent Vogue Italia cover that I thought looked really nice. But you know, everyone who works at these magazines, the stylists, the creative directors, the art directors, they are all intermingling now, and it will start to all look the same. There's no way around it. To be able to keep it really regional and really specific, Vogue Portugal might look great, but that's because Anna Wintour's priority is not Vogue Portugal. It's Vogue British Vogue, It's Vogue France. It's Vogue Italia. It's Vogue Arabia. It's Vogue China, where they make a lot of money. So I think that this is just another example of like I understand from a business perspective why they managing these titles this way But to make sure that advertisers are still excited about them, you have to create that regional, for lack of a better word, tension. And I think that that's what Boring.com was calling out in a really cruel way that was unnecessary. Lauren, hang tight. When we come back, we're going to talk a little bit more about the French milieu. Bernard Arnault is famously discreet, but is now out there. He's posting, he's publishing open letters, he's attacking the media. And I want your insight on how this is playing in Paris after the break. Introducing Intersectors, legal perspectives on global business, a podcast from White & Case. Hear partners with diverse legal perspectives across practices, industries, and jurisdictions discuss the complex legal, business, and geopolitical issues shaping markets worldwide. Subscribe to InterSectors, that's inter-S-E-C-T-O-R-S, and listen wherever you get your podcasts. We secure the world's AI future by securing the world's AI leaders. AI is being adopted faster than companies can secure it. Sensitive data is moving across AI models, and attackers are using AI to strike with unprecedented speed and precision. That's why CrowdStrike built the agentic cybersecurity platform for the AI era, to secure AI and to stop breaches. So you can embrace AI with confidence, not compromise. CrowdStrike. We secure AI. We stop breaches. Welcome back to the powers that be everybody. I'm talking to my colleague, Lauren Sherman, Paris resident, author of Lion Sheet, host of Fashion People. Lauren, we're just talking about some gossip and snark and drama around Vogue France, but sticking in France, your new home. Bernard Arnault is now a poster. You mentioned Bill Ackman. He's 77 years old, suddenly discovering the dopamine of social media. He joined X, I should say, and he posted an open letter to social media because he was miffed about a big deep dive that Le Monde published about LVMH, about his family, about the ongoing succession questions within that family. What did this Le Monde piece say and why did it cause such a stir en France? Well, it was a six-part series about, mostly honestly about Bernard Arnault, not really about the company and its challenges or its strengths or anything like that, but sort of about the people who he's worked with for many years, the sort of development of LVMH, his involvement in local politics and his influence over local politics and French politics, his influence globally. And American politics, a little bit. And yes, American, Putin also, Trump obviously. And then finally, there was a section about his like contributions to the arts and how that's connected to taxes. Oh, and then there was one about his stronghold on the media. And then the last series was about succession. Essentially, it was about follow the money. In business journalism, this is the first rule, follow the money. It's about his pursuit of money and what that has done and how that has shaped his life. And so interestingly, Arnaud, the older and richer and more powerful, he's gotten the fewer interviews he's granted. And he just also did a podcast called Legend that is basically like conspiracy theorists and like Sarkozy was on it. That was the most reputable person. If you get, it's like, it's a very weird thing. So he did, he sat down for two hours with that person and then he did. And I now understand that that was a sort of prep for this big Le Mans piece that they've been working on for six months. Usually for these big investigative pieces, which there was one in La Nouvelle Obes, like probably six months ago, he and his family and his employees, they did not speak on the record for that one. This one, after a really long time, and for this kind of piece, I don't know if they ever have spoken on the record. They all spoke on the record. The whole family? The whole family, all five children, his wife, all of the executives, and him. Who came out looking best and who came out looking worst? That's tricky because it depends on what you think. I think he, in some ways, comes out looking best because he's so powerful and it's incredible what he's done, but he also does not come out looking great because they don't know what they're going to do about succession. He's 77 years old. He'll probably work for almost 10 more years. But the reality of it is they really do not know who is going to be the next CEO of that company. And I think what it comes down to is like, they need to figure that out. And so it's interesting. I don't know. I personally, as someone who covers them very closely and covers the company very, very closely, I thought generally it was a pretty honest portrayal. I made a comment. There are nuanced things that they didn't get because they're not beat reporters even doing something for six months. And they didn't really talk about the business at all, which to me is like, all he cares about is the business. And they didn't kind of... There are long-term challenges with the way that business is run that were not mentioned in the piece. But I think generally, they did a great job It was interesting for me to read I learned a lot that I had never seen before But I think he was upset because he wants control And the more rich and powerful he gets and the more you know his kids all have their own narratives, the executives who work for him less so, but they also have narratives they want to be told. There are going to be more narratives out there. And I think that it can be scary. And, and honestly, the response on X was great. It was hilarious. It was really funny. It wasn't too petty. I think he got to the point. The thing that the piece really missed is he really cares what the French people think. He believes he's done a lot for the country, which he most certainly has. Like the public? Yes. Like the populist vote? Okay. He very much cares what French people think about him. He believes he's created many jobs for France, which is true. He has done everything he's saying. The role of the French people is to criticize their government in some ways. This is the culture of that country. But he lived in America. I think he sees the way even a Jeff Bezos is treated in the US. And even though a lot of people say they're banning Amazon or whatever, generally, there's an understanding of why Jeff Bezos did what he did. Are people more skeptical of billionaires, the idea of crony capitalism? Like many of them don't want to be billionaires. Ask a person in America that they're not going to say no to it. So I think he deeply cares about what people think about him in the country. And I think in the end, he probably regrets granting the interview. I think he did the right thing. And honestly, even if only to send that rebuttal afterwards, because it made him look great. So what did he say? He said something like, I guess Lamont talked about how there aren't like fat people allowed in their offices or overweight people. And he wrote back and said, oh, God forbid, like everyone in my office is attractive and skinny. It was too good. I'll bring this up. Yeah. Basically, they said that like everyone is trim or fit. There's no like sloppy people. And that's pretty much true. But what he said was, you know, he made a comment like, I didn't realize there was an issue with body diversity. I'll take it up in the cafeteria on Monday. It was too good. And then he made a comment because apparently in the piece, like I kind of, they, if you go up his, to see him and you have an Hermes tie on, they provide you with a tie to swipe out. Because Hermes is not LVMH. Very much not. And that's a whole other story. But he said, we don't confiscate the ties. We just provide them with another option. I have many Hermes ties. And so. Well, no, no, no, no, no. The quote, the quote was way better. Guests are offered, quote, a second, more discreet tie for the elevator ride. It was so good. But also in the end, he said, look, I've done all this stuff for the country. And he also made some comments. I talked to a French journalist, Marc Boger, on my podcast. He mentioned, at some point Arnaud mentions the Wertheimers who own Chanel. And he said, when Le Mans did a similar story on the Wertheimers, they didn't speak. And honestly, I think it was better for them. But the difference is like LVMH is a public company. It has shareholders to, it's still, Chanel shares much more information than they need to. Also the Wertheimers are not executives at the business. Of course they help run the business and they've come in when they've like been missing a CEO. One of them has come in and pinch hit, but like it's a different, and also succession wise, it's not obvious that one of their children will manage the business as closely as they have. So I think like, I understand he's jealous of them because they don't get as much. I give them a lot of flack. So don't worry. They're treated with as much scrutiny by me as he is. But generally it was a really interesting kind of manipulation of the media on his part, showing his grip on the media, showing his influence, and also in the end, showing why he is who he is because that response that will be the thing that people remember i thought the series was great though and hats off to the two journalists who did it because they at least got him to talk which in that kind of situation it's never happened before i don't know i'm invested i just i went to lomond a few minutes ago just to just sort of skim and prep here and the six-part series bernard arnaud's empire looks great there's also a picture like a family photo on part six where Bernard is wearing what looks to be like a matador suit with a saber designed by Jonathan Anderson for Dior for this special recognition he got from this club in Paris and it was a really big deal for him that he was recognized by this club well Bernard congratulations on all your success we're so happy for you and we're so happy for you and this fit It looks great, man. It really does. Lauren, it's great to see you in LA here. I think we're going to get a good drink soon when you're doing your little American sojourn. Yeah, we'll try. Thanks for joining me. Miss you. Good to see you, Peter. Thanks so much for listening to The Powers That Be, the official podcast of Puck in partnership with Odyssey. I'm Peter Hamby, and I'd like to thank our show's executive producers, Puck co-founder John Kelly, executive editor Ben Landy, and director of editorial operations, Gabi Grossman. On the Odyssey side, thanks to Bob Tabador and Chris Basil for their recording, editing, mixing, and mastering, and to executive producers Asha Saluja and Leah Reese-Dennis.
