Material World

Is it a tongue twister? No, it’s an acquisition. Sometimes during fashion week it’s what happens when you aren’t looking that’s most interesting.

Fung Brands Limited, the private luxury investment arm of Fung Capital Europe, has bought Delvaux, the Belgium equivalent of Hermes. This follows Fung Brands April purchase of Robert Clergerie, the famous French shoe maker that had almost faded from view.

In other words: since Fung Capital is owned by the Fung family of Hong Kong (aka the Asian retail and distribution powerhouse that owns Li & Fung), the prophesy that western luxury brands will go east, not just for consumers but corporate owners, has once again come true.

The choice of Delvaux is both smart and telling — the latter because it marks a new approach to making east meet west when it comes to luxury.

See, Fung Brands is run by Jean-Marc Loubier, and Mr Loubier knows his way around luxury brands. He was latterly CEO of Escada and before that CEO of LVMH’s Celine for six years and also spent ten years at Louis Vuitton.

Mr Loubier is pretty well placed to sniff out old European houses languishing in obscurity but with a promising archive, just as the Fungs are pretty well placed to figure out how to bring such a story to the promised land of the Asian markets.

Indeed, the pairing makes so much sense, in terms of leveraging relative expertise, it seems odd to think it’s a rarity in the luxury world, where most of the brands with their faces turned to Asia remain guided from their homes in Europe. Granted, they all have local managing directors, but the core C-suite remains abroad.

“It has to work both ways, no?” said Mr Loubier when we were chatting about his new gig the other day while waiting for a show to start. “Otherwise, how can it really work at all?”

Now granted, he would say that. But still, it’s a legitimate question.