Fashion giant Kering Group is looking to expand their scope of influence in announcing their latest venture; Kering Beauté.
You don’t have to be a fashion enthusiast to know about LVMH, co-founded by Bernard Arnault (aka, richest man in the world), but perhaps you need to be ever-so-slightly more in the know to be aware of Kering Group. Not that they don’t make enough money, that’s for sure. In 2021, the French conglomerate amounted to a revenue of 17.64 billion euros, and they’re looking to make that revenue steeper with their latest venture; Kering Beauté.
The idea is to build an in-house beauty division to help promote beauty products of some of their brands. This is Kering’s attempt at widening their areas of expertise, and out of it we can expect beauty products for brands such as Bottega Veneta, Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen, Pomellato and Qeelin. However, Kering’s scope of influence halts at Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, both under contractual obligation to other companies for their beauty lines. It’s all a relatively complicated contractual intricacy, but the gist of it is the following: Gucci’s beauty line is liscenced to Coty, the mogul of the beauty industry. On the other hand, YSL partners with L’Oréal, who bought Kering’s YSL’s Beauté brand back in 2008 for €1.15bn.
The idea of internalising Kering’s beauty business comes as no surprise – the conglomerate did something similar with eyewear seven years ago. Monetarily, this can only mean an increase in revenue. In comparison, LVMH generated €7.7bn in revenues from the beauty sector only last year, which more than justifies Kering’s attempts at doing something similar.
But who exactly is going to manage all of this change? Rumour has it Raffaella Cornaggia, executive of Estée Lauder is taking the reins. She’s got quite an impressive portfolio of brands on her back, including the likes of Tom Ford Beauty, MAC Cosmetics and Aerin.
These news leave us with one certainty. Get ready ladies and gentlemen, as the beauty industry of some of the world’s most known brands is about to be remodelled.