Former Louis Vuitton chief Michael Burke will become chairman and CEO of LVMH’s Fashion Group, the French conglomerate said Thursday. Burke will oversee Celine and Loewe, key megabrands-in-the-making, as well as Givenchy, Marc Jacobs, Pucci, Kenzo and Patou.
Burke succeeds Sidney Toledano, the longtime Dior chief who has led LVMH’s Fashion Group since 2018. During Toledano’s tenure, the unit’s sales have grown significantly, largely powered by the success of Celine and Loewe.
Toledano will stay at LVMH as an advisor to chairman Bernard Arnault, the group said, alongside a new role at Paris’ IFM fashion school, where Toledano was named chairman in 2022.
Burke’s appointment follows months of speculation over where the diehard LVMH loyalist, who has worked for Arnault since the 1980s, would land after being succeeded at the group’s biggest and most profitable brand, Louis Vuitton. Pietro Beccari, who previously led a blockbuster tenure at Dior, took the top job at Vuitton early last year.
Some industry sources have questioned whether LVMH’s Fashion Group structure still makes sense: Loewe and Celine now operate at a scale that requires strong, autonomous leadership at the brand level, and the opportunities and challenges they face no longer resemble those of the unit’s smaller outfits as they start to have more in common with larger brands like Loro Piana, Fendi and Dior, which are not housed in the Fashion Group.
Burke will add oversight of Fendi to his responsibilities, and could eventually add Loro Piana to his portfolio, too, as LVMH seeks to streamline reporting lines to ease the succession of Bernard Arnault, aged 74, sources familiar with the group’s thinking said.
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