Feature No. 05

Why doesn’t anyone read Vogue anymore?

Arnault published thirty hours ahead of half-year results. Wintour took Vogue in 1988 and he took LVMH in 1989. Two machines built on visibility, and the numbers that say what happened next.

The letter is titled “Merci.” Arnault’s group owns Les Echos, Le Parisien, Paris Match and Radio Classique. Le Monde, which ran the six-part series on him, counts his daughter’s partner as its principal shareholder. The rebuttal went out on Sunday through LVMH’s press account. Monday morning he posted on X for the first time, to say he was deeply touched by the response.

Arnault published thirty hours ahead of half-year results. Had he stayed silent, every earnings piece filed today would have opened with the family and closed with the figures. He knew the figures. Net profit, Group share, came in at 5,697 million euros against 5,698 million. That is a print you clear the ground for.

Six instalments in Le Monde about Arnault and his heirs will become the reference text. Hence, Arnault was answering the archive. Le Monde left the series online, unchanged.

Wintour took American Vogue in 1988. Arnault took control of LVMH in 1989. A conglomerate needs volume, volume needs mass desire, mass desire needs certified faces, and certification needs a machine that manufactures fame. The advertising money and the editorial authority were the same money moving in a circle. Vogue was funded by the conglomerate era it was covering.

Aspiration has moved toward the quiet, the silent, away from the marketed handbag. Health, time, privacy, discretion, permanence, and jewellery, as the latest Richemont report clearly showed.

Why doesn’t anyone read Vogue anymore?

Monday’s filing says it twice. Fashion and Leather Goods grew 1 per cent organically in the second quarter and fell 1 per cent across the half, 5 per cent as reported. Its profit fell 7 per cent and its margin slipped to 34.1. Watches and Jewellery grew 9 per cent across the half and eleven in the quarter. Its profit rose 9 per cent and its margin improved to 15.9. The division built on being seen is earning less, and the division built on lasting is earning more.

Wintour stepped back from editing in June 2025 after 37 years, installed Chloe Malle that September, and stayed above her as global editorial director and chief content officer. Malle’s own phrasing was that Anna is still just down the hall. Arnault has named nobody. All five children hold leadership positions in the group, the family holds 50.21 per cent of the capital and 66.39 per cent of the voting rights, and a shareholder who asked in April was told to ask again in seven or eight years.

Arnault and Wintour built machines that run on visibility, novelty, cultural relevancy and zeitgeist.

Why doesn’t anyone read Vogue anymore? Maybe because Paris, Milan, London and New York print the same pages now. Zeitgeist is hard to catch. The most interesting thing any Vogue has done lately was put Slavoj Žižek on the cover of its Adria edition.

Žižek said in the interview that hypocrisy leaves room for interpretation and for protest. Discretion is the hypocrisy of the very rich. The Wertheimers, whom he mentions in the letter, kept theirs. Arnault spent Sunday giving his away, three pages at a time.

The division built on being seen is earning less, and the division built on lasting is earning more.

Why doesn’t anyone read Vogue anymore?