In the airport cafe, can not post any photos. 389 West 12th Street, I remember that location. NYC, unforgettable and painful memories!
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As of March 2007, Arnault owns a 47.5% plurality[2] of LVMH (Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton), along with Christian Dior SA and personal holding company Groupe Arnault . Arnault is the Chairman and CEO of all three companies.
Mr Arnault's father, Jean Arnault, was an industrialist, and owner of a public works company, Ferret-Savinel.
After graduating from the Maxence Van Der Meersch high school, Bernard Arnault was admitted to the École Polytechnique (X1969) from which he graduated with an engineering degree in 1971. After graduation, Mr Arnault joined his father's company. In 1976, he convinced his father to liquidate the construction division of the company for 40 million francs, and to change the focus of company to real estate. Using the name F¨¦rinel, the new company develops a specialty holiday accommodation. In 1979, he succeeded his father as president of the company.
When socialist François Mitterrand was elected President of France in 1981, Mr Arnault emigrated to the United States and created Ferinel Inc. Through this vehicle, Mr Arnault prospered, developing codominums in Palm Beach, Florida. Three years later, when the French Socialists switched to a more conservative economic course, Mr Arnault returned to France and became the CEO of Financi¨¨re Agache, a luxury goods company. With the help of Antoine Bernheim, managing partner of the Banque Lazard investment firm, and government subsidies conferred in exchange for a promise not to downsize, Mr Arnault acquired Boussac, a textile company in turmoil. The Arnault family put up just $15 million of their own money, with Lazard supplying the rest of the reported $80 million purchase price [3]. Mr Arnault sold nearly all the company's assets, keeping only the prestigious Christian Dior brand, and Le Bon March¨¦ department store.
In 1987, shortly after the creation of LVMH, Mr Arnault exploited a growing conflict between Alain Chevalier, Moët Hennessy's CEO, and Henry Recamier, president of Louis Vuitton. The new group held property rights to Dior perfumes, which Mr Arnault craved to incorporate into Dior Couture. He created a holding company of which he owned 60% and Guinness, who had a distribution agreement with Moët-Hennessy, owned 40%. Following the October 1987 stock market crash, he capitalized on the lower quoted price and soon owned 43% of LVMH. He then consolidated his position by purging executives from both companies.
He has since then led the company through an ambitious development plan, turning it into the largest luxury group in the world, ahead of Swiss luxury giant Richemont.
More recently, Mr Arnault, through personal holding Groupe Arnault and associates at Colony have had their eye on Carrefour, a supermarket, buying into the company in March 2007.
Arnault also owned the art auction house Phillips de Pury & Company from 1999 to 2003.
[edit] Personal Information
Mr Arnault is twice married, and the father of five children. His daughter Delphine Arnault is actively involved in the management of LVMH. His second wife, H¨¦l¨¨ne Mercier, is a pianist from Quebec. Mr Arnault is a noted art collector. Following the example of business man François Pinault, he created a Louis Vuitton foundation for contemporary art, which should open at the Jardin d'acclimatation in 2010.
Arnault was a witness at President Nicolas Sarkozy's wedding to C¨¦cilia Ciganer-Alb¨¦niz. He was also awarded the French Legion of Honor.
[edit] Competitors
Arnault's main business competitors are:
French businessman François-Henri Pinault, whose holding company PPR owns Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney, Sergio Rossi, Bottega Veneta, Boucheron, Roger & Gallet, B¨¦dat & Co and Christie's.
Swiss-based Richemont, which owns Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Piaget, Baume et Mercier, IWC, Jaeger-LeCoultre, A. Lange & Söhne, Officine Panerai, Vacheron Constantin, Dunhill, Lancel, Montblanc, Montegrappa, Old England, Purdey, Chlo¨¦, and Shanghai Tang.
[edit] Controversies
In January 2007 Kathryn Blair, the daughter of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, completed an intensive French language and culture course at France's Sorbonne University. Tony Blair has been criticised for accepting an invitation on her behalf from Bernard Arnault. During Kathryn Blair's course, which ran from 12 October 2006 to 26 January 2007, she is thought to have been provided with an accommodation, security and transport package worth around £80,000.[4]
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[edit] Birth and education
Diane Simone Michelle Halfin was born into an upper-middle class Jewish household. Her father was Russian-born Leon Halfin, who spent World War II in Switzerland, and her mother was Greek-born Liliane Nahmias, who was a Holocaust survivor. She studied economics at the University of Geneva in Switzerland.
[edit] Marriages
At university, when she was 18, she met Prince Egon of F¨¹rstenberg, the elder son of a German prince and his first wife, an heiress to the Fiat automotive fortune. Married in 1969 and divorced three years later, the couple had two children, Prince Alexandre (born six months after their wedding)[1] and Princess Tatiana, who were born in New York City. She is now the grandmother of three children. The F¨¹rstenbergs' marriage, though not popular with the groom's family because of the bride's religion, was considered dynastic, and Diane became Princess Diane of F¨¹rstenberg at the time of the wedding, according to the Genealogisches Handbuch Des Adels: F¨¹rstliche Häuser [2] According to Bernardine Morris's article in The New York Times, Diane von F¨¹rstenberg, then separated from her first husband, had dropped her title from use in her professional life.[3]
At the beginning of the eighties, she had an affair with Alain Elkann, Margherita Agnelli's ex-husband, then an ex-cousin of her own ex-husband. From those days, she kept an excellent relationship with his children, Jaki, Lapo and Ginevra Elkann.
In 2001, she married American media mogul Barry Diller, with whom she had been involved, off and on, since the 1970s.[1] In 2002, she became a naturalized U.S. citizen.
[edit] Career
As F¨¹rstenberg once explained, "The minute I knew I was about to be Egon's wife, I decided to have a career. I wanted to be someone of my own, and not just a plain little girl who got married beyond her desserts."[1] In 1970, with a $30,000 investment, she began designing women's clothes. (Her former husband became a fashion designer, too, launching his career in 1974.)[4] She is best known for introducing the knitted jersey "wrap dress" in 1973, an example of which, due to its important influence on women's fashion, is in the collection of the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.[5]
F¨¹rstenberg has started a number of successful businesses including a line of cosmetics and has ventured into the home-shopping business, which she started in 1991. In 1985 she moved to Paris, France where she founded Salvy, a French-language publishing house. Upon the death of artist Lowell Nesbitt in 1993 Diane von F¨¹rstenberg purchased Nesbitt's studio and residence at 389 West 12th Street, the site of a former police stable that Nesbitt had renovated, which measured in excess of 12,500 square feet. This studio and living space, acting as one of the premier examples in New York City during the 1970's and 80's included an indoor swimming pool, a four story atrium and a roof top entertainment area; Nesbitt labeled the facility "The Old Stable." The Lowell Nesbitt studio became a popular gathering place for major art world figures, celebrities and dignitaries including Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Indiana, Jasper Johns, Robert Motherwell, Larry Rivers and James Rosenquist. This monumental space that Nesbitt created resulted in feature articles about the facility in the New York Times, the Washington Post and Architectural Digest Magazine in the late 1970s. Diane von F¨¹rstenberg used the structure until the early 2000¡¯s as her studio and residence when it was sold and demolished to make space for a new high-rise building. She now operates DVF Studio at 874 Washington Street in New York City where she currently creates a line of high-end women's apparel which is only offered in stores such as Bergdorf Goodman, Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Neiman Marcus.
In 1997, after more than a decade, F¨¹rstenberg successfully relaunched her high-end line. She published her memoirs, "Diane: A Signature Life" (Simon & Schuster; 1998). In 2005, the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) awarded her a lifetime achievement award.[6] In 2006, she was named president of the CFDA. She also teamed with T-Mobile to design a Limited Edition Sidekick 3.[7] In 2008, she appeared as a judge on several episodes of Project Runway.
Professionally and personally, she uses von with her surname instead the usual zu used by the House of F¨¹rstenberg (the latter term is rarely encountered outside of Europe). As her advertising campaigns and company letterhead indicate, she also prefers to spell her surname with no umlaut. Earlier in her career however, until the late 1990s, her company's labels included either an umlaut or a squiggle in its place.
Ms. von F¨¹rstenberg is a recipient of The International Center in New York's Award of Excellence.
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