From LVMH to Inditex, cultural cachet is the key to fashion credibility
Fashion companies sponsoring major cultural events? Discuss…
It’s the summer of LVMH as the luxury conglomerate commandeers the Paris Olympics, not least the opening ceremony. Was it just me though who thought the OTT product placement was a bit much? Not to mention clenching at the sight of the dancers lugging monogrammed Louis Vuitton trunks down those slippery rain-lashed steps on the banks of the Seine. (Oh well, no doubt LVMH can afford the liability insurance.)
LVMH is the reigning champ of fashion-as-spectator-sport right now, with its brands regularly staging interactive exhibitions in global locations, all the better to lodge their heritage stories into next-gen customers’ psyches.
The latest of these has just been announced by Dior. This October, La Galerie Dior (you know, the permanent gallery inside the new-ish Avenue Montaigne flagship) celebrates Peter Lindbergh with an exhibition of over 100 of his images featuring Dior, including a number of outfits photographed on the streets of New York in 2018. (If you remember this book*, you’ll know how superb this will be.)
Not to be outdone, Zara owners Inditex also just announced it will host the latest Irving Penn retrospective in Spain. Originally shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2017, Inditex chairperson, Marta Ortega Perez’s MOP Foundation is bringing Irving Penn: Centennial (below) to A Coruña, where Inditex has its HQ, in November. It’s the latest in a string of high-profile Inditex-supported photography exhibitions, following Steven Meisel, Helmut Newton and Peter Lindbergh. Another move in Zara’s reframing of itself as luxury, culture and taste arbiter and not fast fashion? You decide.
WORDS: Disneyrollergirl / Navaz Batliwalla
IMAGES: Peter Lindbergh Dior; Irving Penn
NOTE: Most images are digitally enhanced. Some posts use affiliate links* and PR samples. Please read my privacy and cookies policy here
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