I blogged about Louis Vuitton’s interest in India’s Hidesign in January.  But it looks like it’s really happening.

From the WSJ’s livemint.com:

“What did luxury powerhouse Louis Vuitton (LV) see in a (relatively) small Indian leather goods manufacturer? How did the French brand even think of setting up a factory—its first in Asia and one that will likely end up being its largest in the world—in Puducherry of all places? Why did the intensely private company buy a stake in Hidesign, an Indian company that began as a hobby in 1970s Auroville, India’s French hub?”

Read the whole article here…  Dilip Kapur, The French connection

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

On February 26, France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy along with his Finance Minister- Christine Lagarde, took a tour of the Saint Pourcain Sur Sioule, Louis Vuitton workshop.

Looks like they’re getting a look at the new Richard Prince line.

Sarkozy has a lot of ideas about how to stimulate the economy and stop the rise in inflation (in January- it was the highest it’s been in 11 years). But he’s probably doing a little economics lesson from the folks at LVMH. When every other retailer on the block is taking a good hit- with a sales slump and cooling economy- LVMH is seeing record profits. They’re doing something right.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

(Louis Vuitton’s Asneires, France workshop)

No. Not yet anyway. We know that Louis Vuitton currently has “workshops” in France, the USA, Spain, Italy & Germany… but I thought this was a fascinating article about the wonderful Indian leather company, Hidesign Leather.

Dilip Kapur, President of Hidesign talks about the painstaking process that goes into the hand treatment of their leather. Their methodology is admirable: expensive, but eco-friendly… and apparently I’m not the only one who thinks so. Dilip said in the article:

“That’s what Louis Vuitton liked the most about us — our craftsmanship and the skills of our workers”

Hmmm, interesting. I wonder why LVMH is evaluating his business?

Last year, I read the wonderful book, The World is Flat, by Thomas Friedman. It’s clear that everyone else is taking advantage of the economical, plentiful, hardworking, but skilled labor pool in India… I guess, why not Louis Vuitton?

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!