LVMH Luxury Ventures Fund, the venture capital arm of Bernard Arnault’s towering luxury empire, has acquired a minority stake in the insidery Swedish fashion brand, Our Legacy. Photo: The New York Times
LVMH Luxury Ventures Fund, the venture capital arm of Bernard Arnault’s towering luxury empire, has acquired a minority stake in the insidery Swedish fashion brand, Our Legacy.
To men’s fashion zealots of a particular vintage, Our Legacy is now the little Scandinavian brand that could – with the LVMH co-sign to prove it.
“All of a sudden, we’re a bigger brand at a different, new level,” said Jockum Hallin, one of Our Legacy’s co-founders.
“Its brand image is very cult,” said Julie Bercovy, CEO of LVMH Luxury Ventures Advisors. Our Legacy, she said, is “under the radar, but on our radar”.
Bercovy said the fund was compelled by Our Legacy’s recent financial performance, as well as its strong brand identity, which she described as “quiet hype”, a youthful twist on the quiet luxury trend.
The terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but Bercovy said the investment was in line with the fund’s previous investments, which are as much as US$25mil (approximately RM110mil) for as much as 25% of a company.
The investment stands to give Our Legacy a significant leg up, both financially and reputationally.
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Founded in 2005 by Hallin, his childhood friend Cristopher Nying and Richardos Klaren, the brand’s early collections had a whispery Scandinavian prep look, marked by belted cardigans and unobtrusive checked button-ups.
Our Legacy unfurled its freak flag over the next two decades.
Key items today include its wry trompe l’oeil printed jeans; shrunken to-the-waist sweaters; and square-toed Camion boots (worn by celebrities such as Devin Booker of the Phoenix Suns, and endlessly recommended by men’s fashion TikTok users).
Our Legacy’s avant-minimalist clothes may owe much to Helmut Lang and Martin Margiela, but it’s priced in the shrinking middle of the men’s fashion market.
At about US$600 (RM2,630) for those boots and US$400 (RM1,753) for jeans, Our Legacy’s clothes are far more costly than Zara but still below Gucci's.
Customers seem to be gravitating toward that middle ground.
“The last couple of years, the growth of Our Legacy has been way more rapid than the first 16,” Hallin said.
Between 2020 and 2023, sales doubled year over year. The 19-year-old brand is now stocked at about 250 stores globally, with flagship locations in Stockholm, London, Berlin and Seoul, South Korea, and earns US$40mil (RM175mil) in revenue annually.
Our Legacy is frequently, and fervently, name-checked on Instagram by 20- and 30-something men’s fashion fanboys and the bro-y fashion podcast series Throwing Fits.
Its profile has also been raised through collaborations with brands ranging from egalitarian streetwear (Stussy and Tremaine Emory’s Denim Tears) to the Italian haute (Emporio Armani).
Hallin acknowledged that these at-times-surprising partnerships probably nudged the brand onto LVMH’s radar.
“That’s been something that’s gained more eyes on us,” he said.
As for LVMH, the investment is yet another signal that the giant behind Dior and Louis Vuitton is diversifying its holdings beyond luxury.
It also comes during a critical juncture for the broader conglomerate. Last month, LVMH reported that its sales fell 3% from a year earlier, a decline driven in large part by slipping sales in the highly important Chinese market.
Bercovy stressed that the fund is “very autonomous” from the broader LVMH portfolio.
“It’s not like there’s a lack in the group for menswear, for Gen Zs for instance, and we go for this,” she said.
Still, Bercovy said that Our Legacy’s fan base, as well as its palatable price point made it an attractive investment.
“It’s maybe for a younger generation which is obviously great, because as you know, the sector in fashion and luxury is of course driven by a new generation in terms of growth,” she said.
As a minority investor LVMH Ventures will get a board seat at Our Legacy, but she said the company will “remain fully autonomous from a pure vision standpoint, from a pure operational standpoint”.
In choosing LVMH Ventures as a partner, Our Legacy’s founders were reassured by its past investments in growing brands such as Gabriela Hearst and especially Aime Leon Dore, a New York label spanning the streetwear-luxury divide.
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Hallin said he was swayed by the relatively hands-off approach that LVMH laid out, which he described as “observing” more than directing.
“They said that they don’t want us to change basically anything, just continue doing beautiful stuff,” he added.
At Our Legacy, the funding will be earmarked, in large part, for territorial expansion.
“We’ll gain some muscle to be able to open stores,” Hallin said.
He added that he would like to open one or two Our Legacy stores a year, including in Paris, New York and Tokyo.
The investment will also allow the brand to scale up the womenswear line it introduced six years ago.
“We have a beautiful team, but we can only do so much at once,” said Hallin, who said about 35 people work in Our Legacy’s corporate office.
The women’s line represents about 20% of Our Legacy’s overall business.
A runway show, the sort of splashy spectacle that LVMH’s core fashion brands have mastered, also wasn’t out of the question.
As Hallin said, “We’re getting a little push in the back to get out in the world a little bit more.”
With these possibilities, he believes that Our Legacy could be a US$100mil (RM438mil) business.
“If we’re not in that size within some years, like, say, three to five years, something has stopped working,” Hallin said.
