Paris Fashion Week just became the opening act of a new empire war. In this episode we unpack Marc Abergel (Luxury Executive based in Paris) analysis of the strategic chess match between LVMH and L’Oréal, a clash not just for Armani, but for the future architecture of luxury itself. (Read Marc Abergel's article here: The Armani Succession Isn't About Armani. It's L'Oréal Coming for LVMH)

It’s The Vatican of Desire vs. The Colosseum of Access: scarcity versus scale, mystique versus mass aspiration.

From the quiet corridors of Dior to the open-air spectacle of L’Oréal Paris, we explore how data, beauty licenses and public theater are rewriting the balance of power in global luxury. And why the winner may not be the one you expect.

Listen as we decode how one acquisition could turn L’Oréal from a beauty powerhouse into a $50 billion fashion sovereign by 2030 and why Bernard Arnault may already have Barbarians at his gates.

Selected quotes:

1. “It’s the Vatican of Desire vs. the Coliseum of Access.”
2. “Armani isn’t the prize—it’s the test.”
3. “LVMH bets that distance creates desire; L’Oréal bets that access creates loyalty.”
4. “L’Oréal isn’t bidding on an asset—it’s completing a system.”
5. “$7 billion isn’t a price tag; it’s a down payment.”
6. “Beauty licenses aren’t just revenue—they’re Trojan horses of data.”
7. “Sephora proves LVMH can run a Coliseum; it just keeps it walled off from fashion.”
8. “This is an operating-system war, not a bigger-check contest.”
9. “Rome watched Persia; the Barbarians sacked the city.”
10. “Will LVMH notice the rival empire before it’s already inside the gates—drinking their champagne?”

https://marcinparis.substack.com/p/the-armani-succession-isnt-about

What happens when a single content creator outsmarts the world’s most powerful luxury Maisons? Based on the analysis of Marc Abergel, luxury executive in Paris, this episode unpacks the phenomenon of Lyas Medini: the 26-year-old Parisian who turned rejection from Dior into a revolution. In just four months, he went from watching shows on a bar TV to commanding thousands at live “watch parties” that drew bigger crowds than Chanel itself.

But this isn’t just a viral story, it’s a wake-up call. Luxury’s entire system of control, from access to data, narrative, and distribution, is being rewritten in real time. Drawing on Abergel’s essay “Fashion’s Napster Moment,” this conversation explores how Lyas exposed the industry’s soft underbelly: its dependence on platforms it doesn’t own, and its fear of seeming “anti-democratic.”

It’s not just about fashion anymore, it’s about sovereignty, storytelling, and who truly owns desire.

• “Lyas didn’t democratize fashion—he hijacked it.”
• “Fashion’s Napster Moment isn’t coming. It’s here.”
• “He kicked the door down and showed them the room was full of people waiting to get in.”
• “The Maisons create the million-euro show. Lyas captures the audience, the data, and the future customers.”
• “Luxury was never just about who gets inside the show. It was always about who controls the door itself.”

In this episode, Marc Abergel, luxury executive based in Paris, reframes Paris Fashion Week not as a marketing spectacle but as a battleground for cultural sovereignty. Through the lens of Dior’s billion-view paradox and Formula 1’s reinvention, he lays out a five-act Coronation Playbook for Maisons to reclaim authorship, pricing power, and direct audience control.

This is not marketing chatter. It’s a C-suite strategic briefing on how to build moats of aura, command a sovereignty premium, and turn Fashion Week into civilization’s cultural calendar. Executives across luxury, media, and finance will find a provocative roadmap for what it takes to win not the season, but to win culture itself.

• “The paradox lies in the immediate surrender of authorship. Maisons spend millions to stage sacred rituals, only to hand them over to algorithmic chaos.”
• “Formula 1’s revolution wasn’t just on the track, it was a masterful sovereignty play in culture itself.”
• “Access in luxury is not exclusion, it is elevation. The most loyal are ushered from the antechamber into the throne room.”
• “A handbag becomes more than leather and hardware. It becomes an artifact of a cultural coronation, a vessel of ritual and memory.”
• “The choice is stark: surrender sovereignty to the feed, or rebel by becoming authors of culture, not tenants of the algorithm.”