Rihanna and LVMH Suspend Fenty Fashion Brand

Less than two years after its launch, Rihanna and LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton have mutually agreed to put the high-end fashion brand on hold, reports WWD.

“Rihanna and LVMH have jointly made the decision to put on hold the RTW activity, based in Europe, pending better conditions,” LVMH said in a statement.

The brand stopped posting on Instagram on Jan. 1, while the last collection drop was in November 2020. Fenty.com will shut down in the next few weeks, while a skeleton staff remains at the Fenty headquarters in Paris to wind down operations.

Moving forward, LVMH plans to concentrate on Fenty Beauty and Fenty Skin, as well as Rihanna’s successful lingerie line. Private equity firm L Catterton, in which LVMH has a stake, has raised $115 million to support the upcoming retail expansion of Savage X Fenty, which launched in 2018.

“Following the completion of a fundraising round where L Catterton has taken a stake into Savage X Fenty, LVMH and Rihanna reaffirm their ambition to concentrate on the growth and the long-term development of Fenty ecosystem focusing on cosmetics, skincare, and lingerie,” LVMH and Rihanna added in a statement to WWD.

The luxury brand was launched in May 2019, but the coronavirus crisis made it difficult for Rihanna to be as hands-on with production. Fenty sales of eyewear, shoes, and denim were encouraging, but the process of creating eight ready-to-wear collections a year and operating remotely proved too taxing.

According to The New York Times, Fenty has not closed entirely and the “timeout” could allow the brand to reposition itself post-pandemic.

While Rihanna is said to be “sad” about the news, she and LVMH ultimately decided to give priority to Fenty’s other successful lines including Fenty Skin, which sources have called a “home run.” Other projects are also said to be in the pipeline.

Fenty was only the second fashion house created by LVMH since Christian Lacroix in 1987. Rihanna made history as the first woman to create an original brand at LVMH and the first woman of color at the top of an LVMH maison.