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