Bye Bye Fenty

Rihanna is closing her luxury Fenty fashion house with LVMH after only two years. Rihanna's LVMH deal was a groundbreaking moment in the fashion world because she was the first Black woman to lead an LVMH label. LVMH stands for Louis Vuitton, Moët and Hennessy and it's the largest luxury conglomerate in the world.

I have my own reasons on why this fashion house didn't take off and have the opportunity to be as big as Louis Vuitton or Gucci. Where was the marketing and media outreach? Any new brand needs to rely heavy on marketing to get the word out. It's apparent that having Rihanna's name attached to it was not enough to lift this new venture. In 2019, there was Fenty pop-up shop at Galleries Lafayette in Paris, but I only heard about it from a friend whose mom works higher up in fashion. I'd never seen a commercial or ad outside of Instagram. I honestly don't remember if you could even purchase Fenty in-store. The lines were sold on the Fenty site, SSENSE and Farfetch.

Getting into the clothes themselves, we know Rihanna is a top tier designer. From the immense popularity of Fenty Puma and Savage Fenty, badgal RiRi delivers and luxury Fenty did not for me. The luxury fashion house was supposed to be read-to-wear everyday clothing, but the designs didn't excite me. The shoes and sunglasses were the most original parts of the collections. The sizing was not nearly as inclusive as her Savage brand. The sizes went up to a US12 or 14. Even though luxury brands are never inclusive to curvy queens, looking at who Rihanna stands for I would've expected a couple more sizes added to the range.

Shelby Christie is a fashion and costume historian that specializes in Black designers. She mentions value and currently Fenty resells for about the same that you'd pay retail. The pieces are harder to find, so I do believe the value will increase since we know for sure that nothing else is coming. I am predicting resell value increasing only for the shoes.

Luxury Fenty had a collaboration with Amina Muaddi and Amina is super hot right now. Her shoes sell for $1000+ and have the very specific heel shapes. It was a great attempt to "save" Fenty with the collaboration, but it failed. We see luxury brands collaborate with one another and artists all the time: Louis Vuitton and Supreme, Nike and Off-White, Rimowa with Fendi and Dior. But both brands have to be strong on their own before they come together. I'd hardly call this a loss for Rihanna because she's winning with Fenty Puma, Savage Fenty, Fenty Beauty and hopefully a new album.