Rihanna’s Luxury Fashion Line Put On Hold

Rihanna’s landmark deal with LVMH apparently takes a pause due to poor sales stemming from the pandemic.

It’s been less than two years since fans were raving about Rihanna’s venture into high fashion with the French luxury group, LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the world’s largest luxury group. The headlines were all about Rihanna becoming the first woman to create an original brand at LVMH, and the first woman of color at the top of an LVMH maison. Fenty was the first new house created by the group since Christian Lacroix in 1987.

All things seemed to be pointing in the direction of Rihanna adding her brand’s name into the same conversation as Dior, Celine and Givenchy.

However, due to the coronavirus pandemic that rocked the nation the following year -- things completely shifted. Suddenly, citizens around the world were forced to think about what truly matters - and to most people, high-priced luxury fashion wasn't as much of a priority.

“Rihanna and LVMH have jointly made the decision to put on hold the RTW [ready-to-wear] activity, based in Europe, pending better conditions.” According to a statement from LVMH

Rihanna and LVMH were preparing for this moment for quite some time. Back in October during a review of their third-quarter sales, LVMH had suggested Fenty was underperforming with shoppers.

“On Fenty fashion, we are obviously still in a launching phase and we have to figure out exactly what is the right offer. It’s not something that is easy. Obviously, we have the great help from Rihanna on this, but I would say it’s still a work in progress when it comes to really defining what the offer will be.”the group’s CFO Jean-Jacques Guiony said

This isn’t goodbye to the partnership completely, but rather putting the luxury fashion section of her empire on hold for the time being. They will not produce any new collections, despite Rihanna still being a part of LVMH.

One pony aint stopping Ri’s show though -- Rihanna is the ultimate business woman, with her brand expanding from not just hit music, but also women’s intimate wear, makeup.and most recently skin care. So you'll still be seeing fenty on shelves, you just won't be wearing her original clothing designs anytime soon.