OpinionLuxury fashion has no business issuing NFTs – LVMH’s Bernard Arnault is right
- Big names in luxury, from Gucci to Balmain and Dolce & Gabbana, have issued NFTs, but Bernard Arnault, head of LVMH, dismisses them as hype, and he has a point
- NFTs can be produced at any time and in whatever numbers the creator wants. Won’t that undermine the exclusivity and craftsmanship brands’ success is built on?
When it comes to embracing technology, luxury fashion brands are usually the last in line. It’s often to their own detriment – case in point, their initial unwillingness to sell online. To say that they like to do things the old-fashioned way is an understatement, which is why their obsession with NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, is so perplexing.
LVMH head honcho Bernard Arnault, though, is among the few who aren’t sipping the Kool-Aid. Admittedly, he is not the most tech-savvy guy, but we can’t help but think he’s onto something and that the hype, is just, well, hype.
It appears as though NFTs and luxury brands are a marriage made in heaven. Thanks to blockchain technology, an NFT, in theory anyway, cannot be reproduced. As such it guarantees exclusivity and authenticity – two core principles of luxury brands.
Despite this we’re only one year into the metaverse hype and the cracks have started to appear. Hermès is currently embroiled in a lawsuit with digital artist Mason Rothschild, who created 100 “MetaBirkin” NFTs based on the brand’s iconic bag. It’s opened the floodgates on trademark laws and intellectual property rights, and the battles that follow are likely to have consequences for brands that are notoriously obsessive about controlling their image at whatever cost.