Louis Vuitton is arguably one of the most well-known luxury brands in the world—having a market value of over 415 billion dollars. It was started by a homeless teenager who had no education, worked odd jobs with artisans and craftsmen to survive, slept in the forest, learned valuable skills, and built a billion-dollar empire from nothing. This is the insane rags-to-riches story of a small family business that evolved to become one of the most valuable luxury brands in the world.

The Beginning

Louis Vuitton was born in Anchay, France, in 1821. His mother made hats, while his father was a farmer. As a result, Louis spent the majority of his childhood tending to the farm's livestock and crops. As he turned ten, things started to get worse. At a very young age, Louis tragically lost his mother resulting in his father swiftly remarrying, this time to a woman who proved very bad for young Louis. After a few years, Louis’s father passed away, and he found it challenging to stay with his stepmother. Louis had to leave his home when he was just 14 and traveled 292 miles from his hometown to Paris by foot. He left the house in the middle of the night without even saying “Goodbye”, and never came back. As Paris wasn’t that near, Loui spent many nights in the woods with an empty stomach and just a cloak to keep him warm.

Louis understood the value of a strong work ethic and perseverance and worked odd jobs with artisans and craftsmen but could not support himself and ended up sleeping on the streets. Even though the pay from the employment was not enough to enable him to survive, Vuitton learned significant abilities after working with metal, stone, textiles, and wood. This collection of countless skills later transformed his life—making his company one of the biggest luxury brands in the world.

The First Store

In 1837, Louis began working for Monsieur Marechal, a luggage maker. As a result of his excellent customer service and ability, clients of Monsieur Marechal soon began to appreciate Louis. He soon became famous, resulting in Eugnie de Montijo, the Empress of France and wife of Emperor Napoleon III, choosing Louis as her personal box manufacturer. This opportunity to serve the Empress gave Louis several advantages. Louis Vuitton married Clemence-Emilie Parriaux in 1854 and following the union, Vuitton built his first store.

Back then, the standard baggage boxes had a round top and were made of leather. In order to deter theft, Vuitton designed his distinctive canvas boxes with a flat top and a tumbler lock. This gave him massive success as Vuitton's boxes rose to become a popular item in the next two years. As a result of his mastery, Vuitton was now in high demand. He established a business on Rue Neuve des Capucines, where he became known for his unique baggage collection, and then in 1858, Louis made the first steamer trunk made of grey canvas, known as the Trianon.

Franco-Prussian War

Almost a decade later, in 1867, Louis Vuitton decided to broaden his company’s scope by introducing more contemporary handbags. Women responded favorably to this invention, and sales of Vuitton handbags skyrocketed immediately. Unfortunately for Vuitton, the Franco-Prussian War broke out in France just as his sales were booming. As a result, the family had to leave their home in 1870 and live in camps. Louis Vuitton and his family came dangerously close to starving to death because the food was so limited.

A year later, the battle was over, and Louis returned home to find his workshop devastated and all his supplies gone. Not only this, the Prussian triumph had forced Vuitton's patron, the Empress of France Eugenie, out of power and into exile. However, all of this did not deter Louis from his path as the bag maker as he immediately started seeking a new location to set up his shop. Fortunately for him, property values significantly decreased following the war, enabling Louis Vuitton to set up shop in a wealthy area of Paris. In a few months, his company took off, and he started receiving his first orders from all around the world.

Steady Growth

Louis Vuitton had succeeded in getting his company back on the map by 1872. Moreover, he also brought about a few changes to his designs and changed the pattern of his luggage cases with stripes. Several people appreciated this new style since it was more contemporary and allowed them to stand out. The next few years saw steady growth, and eventually, in 1885, Louis Vuitton established a store in London, the capital of the British Empire and the richest city in the world, to meet the ever-increasing demand. This proved to be a masterstroke as Vuitton's company began to receive orders internationally, with American millionaires and royals now joining his high-profile list of clients.

Louis then decided to incorporate his son Georges into the company since he found it difficult to work long hours at his advanced age. Georges Vuitton took a keen interest in the business and created an unpickable lock system in 1886. Half a decade later, at the age of 72, Louis Vuitton unexpectedly passed away in 1892, when the company’s success started to skyrocket, Georges, his son, took over and started working right away. He met John Wanamaker, the US Postmaster General, who gave him the idea of department shops and price tags. Georges liked the idea, and in collaboration with John Wanamaker, Georges began carrying Louis Vuitton goods to his New York department store.

Going International

In 1893, Georges Vuitton launched a push to expand the business into a global conglomerate by displaying the company's goods at the Chicago World's Fair. The business introduced its iconic Monogram Canvas in 1896 and obtained international patents. This was the time when the LV monogram and other graphic elements like quatrefoils and flowers were introduced and were based on the late Victorian era fashion for employing Japanese Mon motifs.

Georges then visited the United States that year, touring places like New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago while promoting Vuitton goods. The company introduced the Steamer Bag, a compact piece of luggage made to fit within Vuitton trunks, in 1901. At the time, it was the biggest retailer of travel accessories worldwide. Once World War I finished, shops also started popping up in New York, Bombay, Washington, London, Alexandria, and Buenos Aires. This was also the time when LV introduced Keepall and Noe bags in 1930 and 1932, respectively.

The Next-Gen

Once Georges passed away in 1936, he left his son Gaston Vuitton in charge of the company. However, things got off to a difficult start for him due to the global closure of the third-generation Vuitton factory and retail outlets due to the impending start of World War II. To keep his shop in Vichy, France, open, Gaston decided to work with the German government to design their baggage. The Louis Vuitton Company infamously assisted the Nazis in their takeover of France during World War Two. The Vichy government under Marshal Philippe Petain was actively supported by members of the Vuitton family, who also actively aided the government.

Their connection with the Germans helped them become richer during the war years. The family established a factory to make Petain-glorifying artifacts, including over 2,500 busts. Then, in 1946, as the war ended, Louis Vuitton started using leather in most of its products, including anything from little wallets and handbags to large pieces of luggage. The business redesigned its iconic Monogram Canvas in 1959 to make it more flexible, enabling it to be used for purses, bags, and wallets to expand its portfolio.

Billion Dollar Company

Then in 1966, came ‘the Papillon,’ a cylindrical bag still in demand today. After Gaston’s death in 1970, the company was passed down to his sons, who eventually asked Henry Racamier, their sister’s husband, to take charge because of their many disagreements. Under Henri Racamier, LV ventured into retail, and revenues rose from $20 million to $260 million. The brand established its first retail locations in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan, in 1978. The company did not stop there as they collaborated with America's Cup in 1983 to create the Louis Vuitton Cup, a qualifier for the yacht race. Later, Louis Vuitton increased its footprint in Asia by setting up shops in Taipei, Taiwan, in 1983 and Seoul, South Korea, in 1984. By opening stores worldwide, LV had amassed $1 billion in revenues by 1987. Racamier later allowed his friend and partner in the company, Bernard Arnault, to take over control of Louis Vuitton, who still leads the company today.

Profits in 1988 increased 49% over those in 1987, and by 1989, Louis Vuitton had 130 retail locations globally. At the start of the 1990s, Yves Carcelle assumed leadership of LV, and in 1992 Louis Vuitton entered mainland China by establishing its first store in Beijing at the Palace Hotel. Then, in 1993 and 1994, the Taiga leather line and the Voyager Avec literary collection were presented as new products. The company kept looking for ways to make even more profit, as they appointed Marc Jacobs as Louis Vuitton's artistic director in 1997. In March of the following year, he created and unveiled the business's first "prêt-à-porter" line of apparel for men and women. The Monogram Vernis line, the LV scrapbooks, and the Louis Vuitton City Guide all debuted this year as well.

Designers and Anniversary Editions

When sales declined over time, the company teamed up with designers like Vivien Westwood and Manolo Blahnik to produce the Anniversary editions, which provided LV some much-needed momentum. Since then, the business has experienced consistent development and expanded into the watch, apparel, and sunglasses markets. The company unveiled the Tambour watch line in 2002. In 2003, Takashi Murakami and Marc Jacobs collaborated to design the new Monogram Multicolored canvas line of handbags and accessories. The monograms from the regular Monogram Canvas were also made available, but in 33 various colors, with either a white or black background.

Louis Vuitton commemorated its 150th birthday in 2004 by opening shops all around the world in major cities like Johannesburg, Sao Paulo, Mexico City, and Cancun, along with a major store in Shanghai and Fifth Avenue in New York. Next year, in 2005, Louis Vuitton debuted the Speedy watch line and reopened its Champs-Elysees store in Paris, created by American architect Eric Carlson. Since then, the business has seen nothing but success and has grown into one of the biggest companies around the world. This was evident when LV came in first among the top 10 most valuable luxury brands, according to BrandZ, in 2019, with a value of $47.2 billion. The company is so rich that they bought the ‘Sewelo diamond,’ the third-largest rough diamond ever discovered on January 15, 2020, from Lucara Diamond, who mined it from their mine in Botswana.

Counterfeiting and Advertising

The company is also one of the few who, even after closing its 120+ stores in Russia, given the current situation in the region, has continued to pay its 3,500 Russian employees' salaries and benefits. The company actively works to end counterfeiting, and it has a team of attorneys and special investigation agencies on staff to bring offenders before courts around the world. Around half of the company's communications expenditure is set up to fight product counterfeiting. The parent company of Vuitton, LVMH, has stated that 60 employees with varying levels of responsibility work full-time on anti-counterfeiting with the assistance of an extensive network of outside detectives and a group of attorneys. The corporation maintains strict control over how its products are distributed.

The company also takes its advertising campaigns very seriously as they always star big celebrities like Lea Seydoux, Jennifer Lopez, Keith Richards, Kim Kardashian, Madonna, Sean Connery, Angelina Jolie, and David Bowie, to name a few. The business also frequently uses billboards in cosmopolitan cities and print ads in periodicals. The luxury company is now worth more than $30 billion, and all of this success can be traced back to Louis Vuitton, who lived as a homeless kid hoping to bring about change and achieve his dream.

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The Insane Rags to Riches story of Louis Vuitton || A homeless kid who invented Louis Vuitton