The Failure of Fenty
By: Keshaun
In May 2019, the fashion industry was buzzing with excitement over the newest development at LVMH. The luxury behemoth announced that it would be teaming up with super musician and style icon, Robyn 'Rihanna' Fenty, to launch a clothing line. Like everyone else with even a passing interest in fashion, I was excited. Rihanna is one of the most celebrated tastemakers of our time, having used fashion early in her career as a branding mechanism to set herself apart from other pop stars. There was much anticipation to see if she could repeat the success she'd had with early brand extensions such as her Puma collection, her Savage x Fenty intimate apparel line, and of course Fenty Beauty. Many within the fashion industry were especially curious as LVMH had not funded the creation of a new line since the launch of Christian Lacroix’s eponymous brand in 1987. On top of that, Rihanna would be the first Black woman to create an original brand with the conglomerate. With all the anticipation, it was a shock to many when in 2021, less than two years after launching, Rihanna and LVMH jointly decided to put Fenty Maison on “pause”.
So what went wrong?
Fenty Maison faced immediate critique for its price point. LVMH is a company focused on producing luxury products and the Fenty price point reflected that. With a price range that started at $250 and topped out at around $2,000, the brand was aiming for the “contemporary” luxury market. That’s vastly different than the price ranges for her two other consumer brands. Individual pieces from Savage x Fenty are rarely priced over $25. For Fenty Beauty, that price only jumps to around $40. Rihanna’s previous fashion venture Fenty x Puma topped out at around $500. The most expensive items typically being footwear, such as the Fenty x Puma lace up heels that retailed for $450. Many in Rihanna’s core audience felt that the brand was not accessible enough. Meanwhile, I was not shocked by the price point. Like I said, LVMH has always been focused on luxury. What did raise my eyebrow was the mostly middling product these prices were attached to.
Fenty Maison was inspired in part by “the greatest hits of Rihanna’s wardrobe”. On the surface that’s not an issue. Designers like Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli were inspired to launch their brands after getting compliments on their personal style. The difference being that Coco and Schiap’s personal styles were built largely on self-made designs. Instead, Rihanna’s wardrobe mainly consists of head-to-toe ready to wear and custom pieces. The inspirations behind Fenty Maison collections were not merely aesthetic; they often called to mind specific items from her sartorial history. If you like the Tom Ford denim set from S/S ‘18 that Rihanna rocked fresh off the runway you’ll probably love the denim corset dress from Fenty too. If you’re obsessed with Rih’s Jacquemus moments that are somehow flowy yet also tailored to perfection, then you’ll love the pointed shirt and pleated pants set from Fenty Maison. This is not meant to imply that Rihanna is a thief or that Fenty was a brand of knockoffs. That’s the boring take. Besides, nothing that was being referenced was particularly creative or interesting to begin with. Which raises the question, who is this for? Anyone who can afford to buy a $700 minimalist draped dress from Fenty can also afford to buy it from any of the other brands trying to sell chic to upwardly mobile 30 year-olds through clean lines, crisp fabrics, and bright colors.
It doesn’t help that Fenty’s creative director is a fashion chameleon. Rihanna’s wardrobe has never had any element of uniformity. Like Madonna before her, reinvention is crucial to the Rihanna ethos, and that has always included fashion. Rihanna wears whatever feels right to her in that moment, never being tied down to any aesthetic for longer than one album cycle. This makes her an infinitely interesting style star, but a very bad model to build a brand on. While her collections for Puma had similar themes running throughout on the surface each collection felt different. This worked in that context because the Fenty x Puma collections were understood to be limited edition on some level. They were not a regular Puma offering, they were special, therefore every collection needed to feel special for the customer.
On the flip side, when choosing brands to buy from on a regular (or semi-regular) basis, consumers like to be able to identify specific traits they associate with the brand. For Fenty, that main trait was simply Rihanna. In a social climate where every action choice is chosen to fit with micro-trends and arbitrary aesthetics, consumers are equally interested in the idea of what a brand is "about" and who the brand is for, as they are interested in what's actually being sold to them and who’s selling it. And what is being sold to them in this case? The actual clothing shuffled through multiple identities. Often in the same “drop”. Some drops felt like workwear for a casual office, others were club ready, and some felt like the clothes you wear to go shop for better clothes. I could never identify myself as a “Fenty” customer because I never knew who the Fenty customer was supposed to be. I’m not sure the company did either.
What is clear is that Rihanna and LVMH were under the impression they could easily keep consumer interest. Why else would the brand rely on a release model like “drops” which require a dedicated fanbase who are eager to keep up with every new showing. It’s easy to see why they might go this route. The drop model in fashion has much in common with Rihanna’s original claim to fame, music. In both fashion and music, “drops” are announced days, weeks, or months in advance with the expectation that rabid fans will line up to purchase whatever is on offer, largely sight unseen. While Rihanna had built up the cultural clout in the music business to support that, her fashion forays were previously very traditional. Her previous collaborations with River Island, Puma, and Manolo Blahnik were preceded by fashion shows and/or lookbooks that allowed fans and customers to see what would be on offer months in advance. Fenty Maison drops were released with very little fanfare. Email subscribers were informed and the collections were pushed on Instagram. Not exactly a thrilling marketing plan when compared with the Amazon hosted extravaganza that Savage x Fenty throws annually to sell twelve dollar bras.
As someone who was buzzing with excitement when it was announced, I often found myself forgetting the brand existed for months at a time only to be reminded by a random Instagram post. When those reminders came, I would go find myself back on the brand website being underwhelmed by the dismal offerings.
So, what does this all mean and where do we follow Rihanna on her next fashion journey? Well, this could all mean nothing. These are just my thoughts on the failure of Fenty Maison. I could be completely wrong. Case in point, Fenty Maison has not really “failed” because technically it hasn’t closed. LVMH’s official statement to WWD was: “Rihanna and LVMH have jointly made the decision to put on hold the ready-to-wear activity, based in Europe, pending better conditions.”
For now the brand is still on hold. There are rumors that it may come back, maybe on its own, rumors that Rih & LVMH will fold all of their joint Fenty brands into one entity and simultaneously relaunch the clothing side in the process, and of course rumors that “on hold” was merely wording to save face for what otherwise could look like a humiliating failure.
I personally don’t know what I believe will happen to Fenty Maison. What I do hope is that even if the brand never returns, Rihanna continues to do fashion collaborations. No other celebrity has their finger on the pulse of fashion the way she does.
Please mother, don’t abandon us!