0:12 is the most valuable luxury fashion
0:15 brand in the world it's CEO Bernardino
0:17 is also the second wealthiest man on the
0:20 planet with a net worth of around 180
0:22 billion dollars looking at the success
0:24 of today you would never guess that the
0:25 company was started by a man who was
0:27 homeless during his teenage years had no
0:30 education and slept in a forest Louis
0:32 Vuitton is a true rags to richer story
0:35 but the company would also be subject of
0:37 a hostile takeover countless lawsuits
0:39 and a host of other controversies this
0:42 is the insane story of Louis Vuitton and
0:44 how a tiny family business evolved into
0:46 one of the most powerful brands in the world
0:48 world foreign
0:49 foreign [Music]
0:56 was born in 1821 and grew up working on
0:58 his family farm in France in a small
1:00 village called ankai in the middle of
1:02 nowhere they had no electricity and no
1:05 running water Louie's father Xavier was
1:06 a Miller and farmer whilst his mother
1:08 Corrine made hats to help make some
1:10 extra cash there are no records showing
1:12 that Louis ever received an education
1:14 the nearest school was in a village six
1:16 miles away and it's believed he worked
1:17 full-time on the Family Farm without
1:19 learning how to read or write Louis
1:21 would have been working in the fields
1:23 every day From Dusk Till Dawn just to
1:24 make enough food to help feed his family
1:26 needless to say the batons were
1:28 struggling financially and young Louis
1:30 was born into a situation that should
1:32 have doomed him from ever having a
1:34 bright future and then things got much
1:36 worse Louie's mother died when he was
1:38 just 10 years old and his father quickly
1:40 remarried another woman but Louie's new
1:42 stepmother was incredibly controlling
1:44 and manipulative towards him and he
1:46 constantly got into fights with her and
1:48 so when he was just 13 years old he ran
1:50 away from home with plans to go to Paris
1:51 he slipped out in the middle of the
1:54 night without even saying goodbye there
1:56 was just one problem Paris was 225 miles
1:59 away and Louis had no money or food so
2:01 he was forced to walk along dirt roads
2:03 most nights he slept in the woods with
2:05 an empty stomach and just a cloak to
2:07 keep him warm every time he ran into a
2:09 new Village he would do odd jobs in
2:12 exchange for food or coins however there
2:14 have money left over for housing so he
2:16 continued to sleep in the woods or
2:17 wherever he could find shelter for the
2:19 night through these various odd jobs
2:21 Louis was able to pick up skills from
2:23 Craftsman and he learned how to work
2:25 with metal Stone fabric and wood this
2:27 collection of various skills would later
2:30 transform his life but at this rate
2:32 travel was incredibly slow it took him
2:35 three years to reach Paris foreign
2:40 not long after he arrived in Paris Louis
2:42 was able to work as an apprentice
2:44 boxmaker and Packer box makers would
2:46 make custom sized boxes for clients as
2:47 well as pack and unpack them whenever a
2:49 client was about to go on a trip this
2:51 job allowed him to meet many people from
2:52 the upper class who were looking for
2:54 custom-made luggage for their travels
2:56 and Louis worked here for several years
2:58 learning the craft and working as hard
3:00 as he could in fact in 1851 the Empress
3:02 of France ended up being a customer and
3:04 took notice of his fine craftsmanship
3:06 she appointed him as her personal box
3:08 maker and Packer for most box makers
3:10 this would be the highest honor anyone
3:11 could ever achieve in their career Louis
3:13 had gone from a homeless teenager with
3:15 nothing to his name to now working a
3:17 prestigious job amongst royalty that was
3:19 a massive achievement on its own but
3:21 Louis Vuitton had an even bigger vision
3:23 for his future after getting married
3:25 when he was 33 Louis used his savings to
3:27 start his own business and opened up his
3:29 own box making Workshop in Paris to
3:31 begin selling his own products you see
3:33 Louis had noticed a major flaw in the
3:35 luggage of the day all of the boxes were
3:37 made of leather and had a rounded
3:38 dome-shaped tops so that rain would roll
3:40 off the top of the luggage the major
3:42 issue was that it was impossible to
3:44 stack them so a Packers had to carry the
3:45 boxes one by one Louis began
3:47 experimenting with different materials
3:49 to use instead and found that canvas was
3:51 lighter durable and more water resistant
3:53 which meant the trunks could have flat
3:55 tops Instead This made everything more
3:57 efficient as it was now possible to
3:58 stack them up in a pile and pack
4:00 multiple trunks at the same time and
4:02 they were also more compact Louie's new
4:04 suitcase design brought on the dawn of
4:06 modern day luggage at this point Louis
4:08 had already built up his professional
4:10 reputation as well as connections to the
4:11 upper class so once he launched his new
4:13 line of luggage it was immediately a
4:15 huge success he even created a Louis
4:17 Vuitton catalog so the customers could
4:18 look at products that he had available
4:20 and have them made before sending it to
4:22 their homes within two years of creating
4:24 his new suitcases they were considered
4:26 an elegant a must-have accessory amongst
4:28 the wealthy as it became a status symbol
4:30 and the brand it becomes so popular that
4:32 he was receiving orders from around the
4:34 world he even began receiving orders
4:37 from Royals as far away as Egypt in 1859
4:39 Louis made enough profit to hire a team
4:40 of Craftsmen to help fulfill his orders
4:42 he opened a new workshop outside of
4:45 Paris where he hired 20 employees around
4:46 that time more and more people were
4:48 beginning to travel by train and boats
4:50 so the number of his potential customers
4:52 increased exponentially traveling was no
4:54 longer a hobby exclusive to the rich
4:56 people from all walks of life were now
4:58 in need of high quality luggage it would
5:00 seem as though Louis had made it and
5:01 would go on to succeed for the rest of
5:04 his life unfortunately that was not the
5:06 case France was heading to war and
5:08 tragedy was about to strike once again
5:10 for Louis Vuitton
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6:09 get back to our story [Music]
6:11 [Music] foreign
6:14 foreign
6:17 in 1870 when Louis was 49 years old the
6:19 franco-prussian war broke out Louis had
6:21 to flee his home and live in a cramped
6:23 shelter with thousands of others Food
6:25 Supplies were extremely low and he
6:26 feared for his life when Louis could
6:28 finally return to his shop in 1871
6:31 everything was destroyed windows were
6:33 smashed equipment was stolen and he had
6:35 lost everything he'd worked so hard for
6:37 but instead of giving up he decided to
6:39 use his savings to rebuild the business
6:41 and vowed that it would be even better
6:43 than it was before with so many people
6:45 displaced from the war there were far
6:46 more empty shops available for rent
6:48 throughout the city so Louis Vuitton
6:50 took advantage of this by opening his
6:51 new shop in a much more wealthy
6:54 aristocratic location in Paris it was
6:56 perfect because it was right next to the
6:58 railway station and the Grand Hotel so
6:59 Travelers who needed new luggage didn't
7:01 need to go far to find the Louis Vuitton
7:04 store by 1872 he came out with a brand
7:06 new design luggage made out of a beige
7:08 canvas with stripes this became
7:10 incredibly popular and people loved
7:12 showing off the modern style many other
7:13 brands tried to copy his style but his
7:15 back eyes were such ridiculously high
7:17 quality the customers still preferred a
7:19 true Louis Vuitton bag for the next 20
7:21 years Louis continued to work at his new
7:23 shop in Paris until his death when he
7:26 was 70 years old but his legacy was able
7:28 to live on through his son George who
7:30 took over the family business George
7:31 sought out to expand the brand globally
7:33 such as opening a popular store in
7:35 London at this point Louis Vuitton
7:37 luggage was so popular that many other
7:38 box makers were beginning to make
7:42 counterfeits so in 1896 Georges Vuitton
7:44 brought out the now iconic LV monogram
7:46 to make it harder to copy the LV were
7:48 his father's initials in honor of the
7:50 man who started the brand but he also
7:51 came up with the idea of adding a
7:53 revolutionary new lock on the trunks
7:54 that would make it impossible for
7:56 thieves to pick them by the year 1900
7:58 the company had 100 employees and it
8:00 continued to grow year after year all of
8:02 the employees were trained for a very
8:04 long time in order to become expert box
8:06 makers even to this day Louis Vuitton
8:08 employees trained for 18 months to two
8:09 years before they're trusted to make one
8:11 of the products on their own the company
8:13 also began to expand into a whole new
8:14 line of product because of another
8:18 Fashion Icon Coco Chanel in 1925 she
8:19 commissioned a small dome-shaped handbag
8:21 at first this was a design that she
8:23 personally came up with and it was just
8:25 for her however it would go on to be
8:26 mass-produced and it was given the name
8:29 Alma this was massively successful so
8:31 Louis Vuitton decided to make more small
8:33 leather bags like the keeper speedy and
8:35 no before Louis Vuitton handbags were
8:37 often seen as quite in elegant and bulky
8:39 but the company played a big role in men
8:41 being seen as much more fashionable
8:44 George Vuitton died in 1936 and the
8:45 company was then passed over to his son
8:48 Gaston Louis however Gaston took over
8:50 the company at a very difficult time
8:52 because in just a few years France was
8:54 once again heading to war during World
8:56 War II contracts were canceled and
8:58 Gaston was forced to shut down the Louis
9:00 Vuitton Factory Paris was under siege
9:02 again the only way Gaston baton could
9:03 save the business was to collaborate
9:06 with Natsu Germany an author named
9:08 Stephanie Bon Vinci wrote a book called
9:10 Louis Vuitton a French Saga during her
9:12 research of the company archives she
9:13 asked if she could see records from
9:15 World War I 2 almost immediately the
9:17 representatives from the company tried
9:18 to avoid showing her the information
9:21 they claimed that all of the documents
9:24 from 1930 to 1945 were destroyed in a
9:26 fire but after doing a lot of digging
9:28 into other historic documents Stephanie
9:29 discovered that Louis Vuitton was able
9:31 to open a glamorous ground floor shop
9:33 front in the hotel to park throughout
9:35 the Nazi regime as they collaborated
9:37 with them meanwhile several other brands
9:39 were forced to shut down because they
9:40 refused to cooperate with the Nazis
9:43 clearly the company was ashamed of this
9:45 part of their history but they would
9:47 argue Gaston did what he needed to do in
9:49 order for the company to survive other
9:51 fashion designers like Coco Chanel also
9:53 collaborated with the Nazis in order to
9:54 make sure her business in Paris was not
9:56 destroyed if it were not for their
9:58 choice to work with the Enemy their
9:59 brands likely would no longer be around today
10:01 today foreign
10:07 passed away in 1970 his son-in-law Henry
10:09 rackamere took over managing the Louis
10:11 Vuitton brand so we're now on to the
10:13 fourth generation but unlike his
10:15 ancestors Henry already had a lot of
10:16 business experience from a company he'd
10:18 run before so when he took over Louis
10:20 Vuitton he was able to elevate the brand
10:22 to a whole new level Henry began making
10:24 major changes to the Louis Vuitton brand
10:26 in order to grow it from a family-owned
10:28 company to the massive corporation that
10:30 it is today he switched Louis Vuitton's
10:32 business model from wholesale to retail
10:34 by 1978 he'd expanded Louis Vuitton into
10:37 many other countries including Japan and
10:38 over the course of six years and
10:40 accounting for modern inflation sales
10:43 went from 20 million dollars to 260
10:46 million dollars and so in 1984 Henry
10:48 decided to take the company public and
10:49 Louis Vuitton sold out the 1 million
10:53 shares valued at 63.63 each Henry took
10:55 this momentum and influx of cash and
10:57 began opening more stores all across the
10:59 globe by 1987 Louis Vuitton reached 1
11:01 billion dollars in sales it was far
11:03 beyond what Young Louis could have ever
11:05 dreamed of when he first opened his
11:07 first store in Paris Henry also decided
11:09 that the company should combine with
11:10 mower Hennessy a luxury drinks company
11:13 which produced champagne and Cognac and
11:14 together they formed a new luxury
11:18 conglomerate called lvmh in theory by
11:19 joining together it would allow them to
11:21 pull resources and expand even faster
11:24 unfortunately after the merger Henry
11:25 didn't end up getting along well with
11:27 the president of MOA Hennessy so Henry
11:29 asked a successful property developer he
11:31 knew named Bernardino to help him manage
11:34 the situation unfortunately inviting him
11:36 in as an investor would backfire in a
11:39 huge way Bernard secretly bought 43 of
11:41 the shares of Louis Vuitton and got
11:42 support from the Moet and Hennessy
11:45 families to gain more power in lvmh
11:47 Henry felt he'd been betrayed by the man
11:49 he'd brought in to help him and so took
11:51 Bernard to court demanding that he
11:52 should no longer have the majority stake
11:54 in Louis Vuitton but the courts
11:56 ultimately sided with Bernard Henry was
11:58 so angry about being backstabbed by his
11:59 friend that he decided to quit working
12:02 for Louis Vuitton completely now for the
12:03 first time in nearly a hundred years no
12:05 one from the Baton family was involved
12:07 with the brand after all of this drama
12:09 of Bernard's hostile takeover sales of
12:11 Louis Vuitton began to crash journalists
12:13 were no longer covering the brand and
12:14 for a while they looked as though the
12:16 company might fail however Bernard knew
12:17 how to turn the fortune of the company
12:20 around Louis Vuitton was able to make a
12:21 comeback when it began to collaborate
12:23 with several fashion designers during
12:25 its 100th Anniversary Collection big
12:27 names like Vivian Westwood and Isaac
12:29 mizra all created their own take on the
12:31 iconic LV monogram logo they created
12:32 products that customers had never seen
12:34 before and people were once again trying
12:36 to get their hands on a Louis Vuitton
12:38 bag ultimately Bernard's investment in
12:40 Louis Vuitton paid off in a massive way
12:43 he is now the CEO of lvmh and in 2021
12:45 Forbes officially dubbed him the richest
12:47 man in the world with a net worth of
12:49 over 180 billion dollars now of course
12:51 as stock prices move these rich list
12:54 rankings change but he's almost always
12:55 in the top five richest people in the
12:57 world however how of the wealthiest
13:00 people like Bezos musk Gates Buffet
13:02 Bernardino is definitely the least known
13:04 as he prefers to stay out of Spotlight
13:06 what we do know is he has such a
13:08 ruthless reputation in business he is
13:11 known as the wolf in Kashmir which is
13:13 why today lvmh has over 70 different
13:15 brands it owns through all of the
13:17 Acquisitions of mergers Bernard has
13:19 pulled off this one company owns so many
13:21 of the most luxurious brands in the
13:23 world and yet it all started with a
13:26 broke homeless teenager [Music]
13:28 [Music]
13:30 in the modern world Louis Vuitton
13:32 continued to expand its brand with new
13:33 colorful styles that resonated with a
13:36 younger audience in 1997 Marc Jacobs
13:38 became the creative director he designed
13:40 the first ready to wear line and also
13:42 created the popular monogram Vernis line
13:44 of handbags Marc Jacobs also expanded LV
13:47 into watches jewelry and sunglasses
13:48 although he eventually would move on
13:50 from Louis Vuitton and come out with his
13:52 own line of clothing and accessories of
13:54 course the company is not without its
13:56 issues Louis Vuitton has an entire team
13:58 of lawyers searching for copyright
14:00 infringement and they don't hesitate to
14:01 sue someone if they believe that They're
14:03 copying the brand logo they've even sued
14:05 Google for search results and
14:07 advertisements leading people to fake
14:09 bags Google won the case though arguing
14:11 they can't control what their users put
14:12 on the internet Louis Vuitton has also
14:14 gone on to collaborate with Brands like
14:16 Supreme which expanded their demographic
14:18 like never before believe it or not
14:19 though Louis Vuitton actually sued
14:21 Supreme as well for copying their logo
14:23 until they realized how profitable a
14:25 collaboration would be now Louis Vuitton
14:27 Supreme items resell for a small fortune
14:29 for for example the leather trunk is on
14:33 sale for 125 000 or even an LV Supreme
14:35 hoodie is over five thousand dollars of
14:37 course the counterfeit problem Louis
14:38 Vuitton had since the early days of the
14:40 business is still an issue for the brand
14:42 today they estimate that every year they
14:44 lose hundreds of millions of dollars to
14:45 counterfeit versions of their products
14:48 however even after being in business for
14:50 168 years they don't seem to be slowing
14:52 down anytime soon Louis Vuitton
14:54 continues to be a brand that many people
14:56 aspire to wear and it's a staple among
14:58 the Rich and Famous currently they are
15:00 the number one fashion brand in the
15:02 entire world valued at 39 billion
15:04 dollars with more than 400 stores you
15:05 can find a Louis Vuitton in nearly every
15:08 major city around the globe but what do
15:09 you think of Louis Vuitton do you think
15:12 it's overpriced by all the hype or do
15:13 you feel that the quality of the
15:15 products justifies the massive price tag
15:16 comment below and then make sure you
15:18 click on the next video in my series of
15:20 luxury Brands which is the story of the
15:22 orphan who built Rolex and answers the
15:25 question why is Rolex really so
15:27 expensive the Rolex video is the perfect
15:29 video to watch after this one so we'll
