As luxury fashion brands face intensifying competition for profit margins, 2025 has already witnessed the industry’s leading players taking decisive actions to shape the competitive landscape. LVMH-backed investment firm L Catterton acquired a majority stake in Japanese denim brand Kapital, adding to its extensive brand portfolio. Meanwhile, Kering made headlines with fashion’s first entertainment company — Saint Laurent Productions — which swept up Golden Globe nominations and awards. These investments are more than just financial transactions — they are cultural and strategic moves.
Such is the case with the recent acquisition of a minority stake in the fashion brand The Row — founded by former actresses Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen — by some of Europe’s most influential family dynasties. The Wertheimer brothers, owners of Chanel, as well as Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, heiress to the L’Oreal fortune, have all joined forces to invest in the minimalist fashion label, pushing its valuation to a remarkable USD 1 billion, according to Bloomberg.
The investment between high-profile European luxury moguls and The Row presents a new future of fashion, where consumer tastes become more refined and options grow more exclusive. This latest move highlights the intersection of legacy companies, with its long-standing history of nurturing and sustaining high-end brands; and shifting consumer tastes, where affluent buyers are seeking more refined, discreet luxury over conspicuous displays of wealth.
The Rise of The Row
Founded in 2006, The Row was born out of the search for the perfect white T-shirt, as Ashley Olsen explained in a Net-a-Porter interview. Seeing a gap in the market, the sisters focused on creating timeless, classic clothes and staple styles that could be passed down for generations, leading various outlets to declare the brand as “the high-end version of Uniqlo”.
Much of its success is due to its luxurious subtlety, from its marketing to its clothing collection. The Row’s commitment to bespoke tailoring, quality, and attention to detail quickly resonated with high-end consumers who were searching for luxury that was not about aesthetics but about longevity. The label’s early success with the Margaux bag in 2012, coupled with its numerous CFDA awards, only furthered its reputation as the ultimate brand for sleek, refined design. Although never explicit in their marketing, The Row’s association with British royalty like Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton, as well as Hollywood celebrities like Kendall Jenner and Jennifer Lawrence, helped elevate the brand’s profile. As a New York Times article stated, “It’s the epitome of understated, adult indulgence” — a notion we now know all too well as quiet luxury.
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Quiet Luxury’s New Vanguard
The Row has been enjoying success for years. However, only in recent years has the brand been receiving more widespread recognition as the embodiment of the “quiet luxury” trend that has taken over the fashion industry. The brand’s appeal lies in its ability to combine craftsmanship, simplicity, and most of all, exclusivity, in a way that speaks to an increasingly private consumer base whose lifestyles differ starkly from the masses. Prices for The Row’s array of cashmere sweaters, wool coats, and leather handbags can go from a few thousand to upwards of USD 7,000. Its lack of brick-and-mortar locations (of which there are only five) creates a sense of scarcity that appeals to affluent shoppers who value rarity and discretion. The Row — like its founders — is also famously anti-social media. For its Spring/Summer 2025 showing during Paris Fashion Week, The Row banned all phones and filming, which The Guardian described as “the ultimate signifier” of real power and new luxury.
These aspects make it an ideal candidate for investment from families who, like the Wertheimers and Bettencourt Meyers, have long been entrenched in the world of high-end fashion. The brand’s carefully curated reputation is a perfect jumping-off point for its latest investors to further advance in the world of luxury. In recent years, many brands have embraced the “quiet luxury” trend, yet few have achieved the level of recognition and mystique that The Row commands. One could argue that its blend of being widely discussed yet seemingly unattainable embodies a concept that luxury fashion has aspired to since its inception.
A New Era of Luxury
The investment by Mousse Partners (the family office of the Wertheimer brothers) and Tethys Invest (owned by the Bettencourt Meyers family) reflects a keen understanding of the shifting landscape in luxury. As one may be aware, the private Wertheimer brothers, Alain and Gérard, are billionaires who hold a majority stake in Chanel — a legacy rooted in their grandfather Pierre’s decision to support the then-emerging designer Coco Chanel. The brothers played a significant role in appointing Karl Lagerfeld as artistic director in 1983, showcasing their discerning eye for cultivating visionary talent.
Various social and cultural shifts have made the popularity of quiet luxury inevitable, particularly among a younger generation of consumers. The pandemic marked the beginning of the 2020s, plunging the global economy into a recession, which notably altered the dynamics of the fashion industry. Logomania and extravagant displays of wealth are known to fall out of fashion during times of hardship — Forbes reported that Hermès switched to unmarked shopping bags instead of their signature orange bags during the 2008 financial crisis.
Simultaneously, social media was littered with the beginnings of quiet luxury aesthetics. It-girls like Hailey Bieber and Sofia Richie frequently showed off their preference for elegant, understated dressing to their millions of followers, while popular TV show Succession went viral for declaring a Burberry-check tote “ludicrously capacious.” As of May 2023, Refinery29 reported that the term “quiet luxury” had surpassed 35 billion views on TikTok alone.
In comparison, traditional luxury brands have been experiencing a tumultuous time post-pandemic. In 2024, Bain estimated that the luxury goods market would stumble slightly, falling by 2 percent. McKinsey & Company’s 2025 State of Fashion report suggests that economic uncertainty and changing customer behaviours will cause legacy brands to re-evaluate their strategies. The recent reshuffling of creative directors in fashion only demonstrates the need to be inventive. As these traditional luxury brands face hurdles, the decision to back a label that epitomises this “quiet luxury” trend represents a proactive attempt to adapt.
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For the Wertheimer family, the investment in The Row marks another strategic move in the diversification of their family holdings. Beyond Chanel, Mousse Partners has backed a range of investments, including AI marketing and telemental healthcare. By investing in The Row, the Wertheimers are signaling their belief in the lasting appeal of luxury fashion that caters to a refined clientele — an approach that contrasts the more mainstream luxury products they are most famous for.
Similarly, Françoise Bettencourt Meyers’ Tethys Invest, which already has stakes in brands like Sézane — a French fashion label that champions a similar ethos of contemporary luxury — further solidifies her family’s commitment to supporting brands that appeal to the modern consumer. There have already been signs of this new era in luxury: contemporary brands like Ganni have gained popularity and LVMH acquired a minority stake in Parisian leather bag brand Polène in 2024.
What’s Next for The Row?
So far, The Row has been purposely selective in its expansion, but the involvement of such influential players could signify a major leap forward. The brand’s “timeless and classic” philosophy has made it immune to seasonal cycles, but its recent time in the spotlight has ironically made it one of the trendiest brands in luxury fashion. While The Row is experiencing heightened popularity at the peak of the “quiet luxury” phenomenon, the stake acquired by the Wertheimer and Bettencourt Meyers families indicates the potential for something more — that the new era of luxury is subtlety. The long-term investment suggests a future of fashion that is less about showing off, and more so about not showing monograms, symbols, or emblems at all — a silent symbol of luxury that only those in-the-know would have the privilege of experiencing.
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