After less than two years in business, Rihanna’s luxury fashion house Fenty is being put on hold.
In a joint statement to WWD, Rihanna and conglomerate LVMH (owner of Fenty) said: “Rihanna and LVMH have jointly made the decision to put on hold the ready-to-wear activity, based in Europe, pending better conditions.”
Instead, the 32-year-old singer and entrepreneur will be focusing her energies on her other ventures: Fenty Beauty, Fenty Skin, and lingerie brand Savage x Fenty.
Savage x Fenty has been doing particularly well; it has just completed a $115 million (£83 million) Series B fundraising round, and the brand’s next step is to expand into retail.
The pandemic has hit the fashion industry hard, and this shows even celebrity-led brands aren’t immune from its effects. We don’t know if Fenty will ever be back, but it’s had a huge impact in a short period of time…
Fenty’s groundbreaking legacy…
Fenty’s debut in May 2019 was a huge step for the fashion industry. It was the first brand LVMH set up from scratch, and it made Rihanna the first black woman to run a major luxury house under the conglomerate.
It also led the trend for brands becoming less tied to fashion week. Instead of showing at the biannual event, Fenty dropped its collections when it wanted, with clothes available to buy immediately. Since then, major brands like Gucci have followed suit and started breaking away from the traditionally rigid fashion week calendar.
The trends it set…
Full faux leather
Structured denim
Sexy slip dresses
Laced up shoes
The fashion moments it served…
Fenty wasn’t just for Instagram – the clothes had some huge red carpet and street style moments. Take the Fashion Awards 2019: Rihanna took home the Urban Luxe prize in a pale blue satin minidress with a chiffon jacket and matching gloves. Her ensemble was full Fenty, even down to the teal shoes.
Plenty of Rihanna’s famous friends have worn her designs – like Bella Hadid, who modelled one of the trendsetting Fenty denim dresses.
And who would have thought we’d see Rihanna at a cricket match in County Durham? She supported the West Indies at the 2019 Cricket World Cup in suitable style, wearing one of the white Fenty denim dresses as an open jacket, with a white tank top and trousers underneath.
Eyewear has been a huge part of the Fenty business, with Rihanna focusing on futuristic designs. For a 2019 film premiere, Cardi B wore a vintage Jean Paul Gaultier dress, paired with a space-age pair of supersized Fenty frames.
