To receive the Vogue Business newsletter, sign up here.
Louis Vuitton — already the world’s biggest luxury brand — is diversifying further with its first fine jewellery collection aimed primarily at men, meeting rising demand in the category.
“Men used to wear a lot of jewellery, and it’s now finally turning around,” Francesca Amfitheatrof, artistic director for watches and jewellery at Louis Vuitton, tells Vogue Business. “Men are much more adventurous and interested in jewellery.”
Men’s luxury fine jewellery is an emerging market: reaching around $7.3 billion in 2023, according to Euromonitor, compared to $44 billion for women’s luxury fine jewellery. However, its annual growth (7.3 per cent) outpaces women’s (4.6 per cent), per Euromonitor’s latest estimates. Male celebrities are leading the way. At Sunday night’s Golden Globes, stars including Barry Keoghan and Charles Melton added hard-to-miss diamond earrings to their evening looks, Timothée Chalamet and Jared Leto wore Cartier necklaces and Jon Batiste opted for Tiffany pieces.
LVMH has focused on hard luxury in recent years, not the least through its acquisition of Tiffany for $15.8 billion in 2020 and, more recently, the appointment of Frédéric Arnault as CEO of LVMH watches, a newly created role. LVMH’s watches and jewellery division, which includes Tiffany and Bulgari, generated €10.6 billion in 2022, up 12 per cent year-on-year. In addition, its fashion brands, including Louis Vuitton and Dior, have affirmed their jewellery ambitions (Louis Vuitton presented its largest high jewellery collection to date in 2023).
Prices for the new 18-piece men’s fine jewellery collection range from €1,900 for a trunk stud earring to approximately €145,000 for a “masterpiece” necklace in white gold and diamonds. “It’s probably the smallest trunk we’ve ever made. And it’s kind of dinky for a man,” Amfitheatrof says of the stud. The iconic Louis Vuitton monogram appears across pieces like the tag pendant (€6,700) and titanium ring (€4,500).
The collection’s name, Les Gastons Vuitton, is a play on “Les Garçons” (the boys) but is also a nod to Gaston-Louis Vuitton, the grandson of Louis Vuitton. “Gaston was the first Vuitton family member to bring a certain playfulness and lightness into the maison,” Amfitheatrof says. “So it’s sort of bringing this sensibility men have today. Men are much more in tune with their emotions.”
That said, it was also designed with women in mind. “I was briefed to do a men’s collection, but I felt like having to distinguish collections by gender feels a little old-fashioned. This collection has a scale and a size element to it that is considered men but at the same time, it’s also made for women. I’m going to wear it for sure,” says Amfitheatrof, who was also behind the launch of LV Volt, the brand’s successful unisex line of fine jewellery, in 2020.
A men’s collection lends itself to experimenting with material, Amfitheatrof explains: “Titanium is used in aerospace and has this ability of being a tough, dense metal and therefore, when we laser cut into it, it feels really crisp. When we laser cut the monogram into it, it feels really modern.”
The brand signifiers — whether the monogram or the trunk — are ubiquitous in the collection. “Those elements are part of our history and we adapt it in an interesting way. It’s not just taking the logo, boom, and putting it on. We play with it.”
The world’s largest luxury brand is already present in a dizzying number of categories, including furniture and chocolate. Getting into men’s jewellery feels like a natural move. “We have quite a lot of men buying high jewellery already. I think we will add to this collection,” Amfitheatrof says.
“Louis Vuitton has the relevance, firepower and long-term approach to boost the interest of consumers for a nascent product category like men’s jewellery,” says Mario Ortelli, managing director of luxury strategy advisory Ortelli and Co. “I believe that in the long run, luxury men’s jewellery can become quite a sizeable business (even if far smaller than women’s), potentially with a share of branded jewellery (versus unbranded) higher than in women’s jewellery. In men’s jewellery, soft luxury brands like Louis Vuitton can experiment more in the use of new materials, and they can also be as relevant as hard luxury brands that had jewellery in their DNA from inception.”
Les Gastons Vuitton is available in a selected number of Louis Vuitton stores worldwide and displayed, depending on the location, on the men’s floor or on the accessory floor.
The launch follows the in-store arrival of the first collection by Pharrell Williams, the Louis Vuitton men’s creative director. Amfitheatrof started working on the collection before Williams joined, yet acknowledges that the dates aligned nicely. “I think it’s great that it launches [at the same time as] Pharrell’s first collection in stores. It’s a collection that unites a little bit of what we’re doing in womenswear as well as what we’re doing in menswear. It feels very fresh.”
Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com.
More from this author:
This season’s menswear cheat sheet
Frédéric Arnault named CEO of LVMH Watches in newly created role
