This article on LVMH and technology is part of our Vogue Business membership package. To enjoy unlimited access to our weekly Technology Edit, which contains Member-only reporting and analysis and our NFT Tracker, sign up for membership here.
Despite what you may have heard, luxury shoppers are still interested in NFTs, metaverse spaces and the future of fashion — just maybe don’t use the term “NFT”, and keep the tech invisible.
These are among the key insights that LVMH’s Nelly Mensah has gleaned during her three years guiding its family of brands through experiments that span digital identities, virtual worlds and the next phase of the internet. Mensah joined Vogue Business’s Fashion Futures in New York City on 26 September, alongside speakers from J Crew, H&M, Rent the Runway, Vestiaire Collective, Adidas, Adore Me and more.
At the Vogue Business Fashion Futures event in New York on 26 September, a group of startups, many selected by Vogue Business editors, presented a host of solutions that applied new technologies to power a better industry.
As vice president of digital innovation and global head of crypto and metaverse at parent company of brands including Louis Vuitton, Dior and Rimowa, Mensah works across the group’s portfolio to understand, test and scale uses of new technologies. “It’s a great sandbox, because at any given point in time there is a brand or a maison that wants to experiment with [for example] a digital product passport, or that is actually a really good fit for gaming, or that wants to do something with AI,” she said in her keynote. “The job of my team is to aggregate all of these learnings and help other brands then follow suit in what we call a ‘brand-safe’ way.”
Part of that includes knowing when to say no. While leading innovation and in-store projects at LVMH-owned Sephora, Mensah advised against one brand’s imminent metaverse project. Since then, she said, success is measured just as much in all the projects and technologies that didn’t come to fruition in an effort to “keep the brand safe”.
She began the newly formed role during the Web3 and metaverse hype period, in which her key focus was on educating brands and identifying areas in which to experiment. Now, she said, the focus has moved toward results, including “moving the needle” on practical metrics such as engagement, conversion, reducing returns or other costs.
‘Invisible’ tech comes into focus
Sometimes this starts with more subtle uses of technology. “One of my favourite topics right now, given the state of the world and all the macroeconomic factors, is how can you use technology behind the scenes? Maybe it is to be a lot more efficient, to be more sustainable or to reduce the cost of getting something out the door to the client,” she explained. “These are really tangible KPIs that you have to agree upon with the maison, and be really diligent about measuring and reporting. That’s how we gain the trust.”
Trust in her work is critical, as luxury has at times been at odds with embracing risky technologies, bleeding-edge formats or unproven business models. Especially for 100-year-old brands, whose success is dependent on legacy products and processes, it can seem risky to try something new. Mensah begs to differ. “I think all beautiful things arise from constraints and tensions. With a group like LVMH, almost every single maison has some kind of innovation at its core that differentiates it from the competition. It has [historically] been product innovation, but now we are taking that same mentality — this culture of wanting to be first or, if you’re not first, being the best — and trying it on with different technologies.”
To test safely, she advises brands to determine who the experience will be for, which product category it will address and the timescale of execution. For example, a one-month Fenty Beauty experience in Roblox made sense because the Fenty Beauty audience uses Roblox and the limited time frame enabled a finite period of experimentation. Digital product passports, meanwhile, make particular sense for fine jewellery and diamonds because there are fewer pieces, there is demand for authentication and provenance information, and there are regulatory pressures. Louis Vuitton is currently looking at this use case, she shared, and this stands to inspire other brands in the group. “A little sibling rivalry always helps; the other watch and jewellery maisons are saying, ‘Louis Vuitton did it, so we have to do it’ — and that helps a lot.”
Internally, LVMH has created its own GPT, which harnesses generative AI for employee usage. (It’s similar to ChatGPT, but it’s an internal version kept solely within LVMH.) Anyone in the group can use the tool to enter prompts or upload a document to aid in tasks such as writing or translating emails, creating slides and improving job descriptions. The tool has been a “huge success”, Mensah said, because people are independently identifying personal uses that enable them to work faster and more successfully. “From the very beginning, LVMH was very intentional about sharing with all of its maisons and its employees that this will never replace human creativity and the human in the loop. But whatever your task or job is, this technology can enhance it,” she continued.
A pivot for NFTs and the metaverse
While the term “metaverse” has fallen out of favour, Mensah remains bullish on the anticipation that future consumers will interact in immersive spaces, such as gaming platforms or through mixed reality, and that there is a need for 3D design.
Gaming, which she likens to a new form of social media, plays a big part. To this end, LVMH recently signed a long-term partnership with Epic Games, maker of 3D creation software Unreal Engine. LVMH has also formed an internal team specialising in 3D design to help brands create 3D content, which Mensah said will position them for success in the future. Rimowa, for example, already enables online customers to interact with 3D renders of its suitcases, which prepared it for the arrival of the Apple Vision Pro, for which the luggage brand created an experience without the need for much upfront development. These types of products now emphasise what LVMH considers “digital craftsmanship”.
“LVMH realised that the same amount of attention and care that we put into our storytelling and products and environments in the physical world, we need to bring that into the digital space,” Mensah said. “When you think about the future, you can’t predict it. So the best thing you can do is think about, what is it that I can build today that will help me be ready for that future?”
The company has moved on from focusing on NFTs to a long-term strategy for digital product passports. “All of that experimentation around NFTs in most cases lets us realise that we want to do it in a way that’s really easy for the client. With a digital product passport, you don’t need a crypto wallet.”
The future still includes consumer-facing NFTs, she added, even if the word “NFT” is now off the table — as long as there are physical-world perks. Mensah shared that of the portion of people who bought into Louis Vuitton’s $39,000 NFT community, named Via, almost half did not come from a tech background; rather, they were already fans of the brand who were interested in the exclusivity aspect of the community, which enables members to buy items that aren’t available to anyone else and attend special events, such as a private Olympics party and a visit to the brand founder’s ancestral home. (Educating client advisors on this offering helped.) “Really, it’s not about the technology; it’s about access to the brand, exclusivity and being in a community with like-minded people.”
Sign up to receive the Vogue Business newsletter for the latest luxury news and insights, plus exclusive membership discounts.
Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com.
