Delphine Arnault was appointed chairman and CEO of Christian Dior in February 2023. As the eldest child and only daughter of Bernard Arnault, the chairman and CEO of LVMH, she learned the intricacies of the fashion business while moving through the ranks of various LVMH brands over two decades. Now, the 50-year-old Arnault is the first woman to helm the ship at Dior, almost 40 years after her father bought its parent company.
She originally joined Dior in 2001 and was promoted to deputy managing director in 2008, helping oversee one of the brand’s most successful periods. Arnault then joined Louis Vuitton as executive vice president in 2013 and ushered in the prosperous reign of fashion designer Nicolas Ghesquière. She was also instrumental in appointing Maria Grazia Chiuri as Dior’s first female creative director in 2016. With this selection, Chiuri brought a new-wave feminist lens to the atelier’s optics of traditional femininity.
Left: Delphine Arnault, chairman and CEO of Christian Dior (Photo by Stephane Cardinale-Corbis/Getty) Right: Dior’s recently reimagined 30 Montaigne flagship is located at the same address as the designer’s original atelier (Photo by Dominique Maitre/Getty)
Dior sales reached €9.5 billion in 2023, up from €8.6 billion in 2022. And its fourth quarter of 2024 showed accelerated organic revenue growth, highlighting the atelier’s resilience in an unpredictable market.
Part of this success is because Arnault has a knack for spotting genius. After all, she was just a child when her father bought Dior, and she grew up visiting the maison on weekends—an early education in fashion.
In 2014, she founded the LVMH Prize for Young Fashion Designers and remains a key scout for the group. This competition finds and nurtures talent between the ages of 18 and 40 with a €400,000 endowment and a one-year mentorship with a dedicated LVMH team.
The competition has launched the careers of notable designers including Grace Wales Bonner and Thebe Magugu and continues to shine a spotlight on new designers’ skills. Ghesquière told Vogue that given Arnault’s eye for talent, he wasn’t surprised when she launched the LVMH Prize. “It reveals a lot about her—how she thinks about the future,” he said.
Arnault played a key role in bringing on Jonathan Anderson as the creative director for Spanish fashion house Loewe. He transformed the atelier into a global name, proving once again how savvy Arnault is at bringing on people with creative—and lucrative—ideas. In 2015, Arnault was also credited as being influential in acquiring a minority stake in Italian fine jewelry brand Repossi. LVMH then became Repossi’s majority stakeholder in 2018 to further support the brand’s international expansion.
As she continues to steer the 78-year-old brand through the demands of a 21st-century market, Arnault has had a lifetime of preparation for balancing its heritage with its future. As she told Vogue, “Dior is the most famous French name in the world.” Under her guardianship, it seems poised to become even bigger.
