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Louis Vuitton launching makeup was always going to generate buzz. It’s the world’s biggest luxury brand, and among the last of the mega labels to release its own beauty line. Rivals like Chanel and Armani have sold cosmetics and perfume for decades; more recently, Hermés, Gucci, Prada and others have made splashy entrances into the category.
But when the collection was revealed on Tuesday, it wasn’t the packaging designed by furniture designer Konstantin Grcic, or even the involvement of legendary makeup artist Pat McGrath that seemed to capture the public’s attention. Instead, it was the prices.
At $160 for a single lipstick or lip balm, and $250 for a slimline eyeshadow palette, Louis Vuitton has priced its cosmetics in an entirely new galaxy of inaccessibility.
That took some doing. Beauty shoppers have gotten used to eye-wateringly high prices for certain items: It’s not unusual for a fragrance from a hot brand to cost upwards of $200, and luxury skincare brands like La Mer and La Prairie have well-established customer bases for their $300+ creams.
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Most of those items were launched in a different era, when consumers were more willing to buy the proposition that a luxury brand’s products were worth the higher price. That relationship is more strained today, in the era of dupes and sweatshop allegations, and many high-end fashion brands reporting slumping sales.
LVMH-owned Louis Vuitton is also departing from the beauty playbook in applying sky-high prices to cosmetics, where even luxury names like Dior, Valentino and Givenchy keep the price of many of their core items not much higher than $60. When Hermés, perhaps the ultimate luxury brand, debuted its lipstick line in 2022, its price tag of $81 was enough to make waves. Proving to consumers that a lipstick — or even a lip balm — is worth well over $100 may be a tough sell.
Louis Vuitton is taking its best shot. In addition to the designer packaging, products have rarefied ingredients extracted from exclusive locales like the perfumery hub of Grasse in France, and it’s also offering a staggering 55 shades of lipstick at launch when most would offer around 15, at the most.
But its best pitch might be that, even at $160, its lipstick is still affordable compared with the rest of Louis Vuitton’s offerings. Like many of its peers, the brand has raised prices aggressively since the beginning of the “revenge spending” phenomenon that emerged during Covid lockdowns. Between 2017 and 2022, Louis Vuitton nearly doubled the price of its popular Neverfull, to more than $2,000. The brand has also been releasing bags at even higher price points, as it positions itself as a seller of $4,000 leather handbags to the wealthy, rather than $750 canvas totes for the middle class.
Even when its bags were more affordable, Louis Vuitton set prices very high in non-core categories, including eyewear and fragrance, to create a halo of luxury around its more accessible lines. Perfume, first released in 2016, starts at $350, more than $100 above many other designer perfumes.
Shoppers willing to pay those prices probably won’t blink an eye at the cost of the new cosmetics line, and may be upsold on the brand’s new leather lipstick pouches and blotting paper wallets as well. Louis Vuitton could have a major advantage as a first mover among the big fashion houses in going after the uber-wealthy beauty niche.
The question is whether there are enough of these customers. Scale will likely be difficult for the line: For now, it will be sold on Louis Vuitton’s e-commerce site and select stores, but to make real money in beauty, specialty retailers like Sephora and Ulta Beauty are needed. Louis Vuitton has an in at Sephora — it’s also owned by LVMH — but it will be a tough sell even to the relatively affluent Sephora customer. Right now, the most expensive lipstick it offers is the $62 option from Tom Ford, and without heavy investment and a watchful eye from the Louis Vuitton team, in-store displays can quickly become messy or look tired.
Louis Vuitton may also be underestimating consumers’ backlash to high prices. As in fashion, beauty is undergoing a value-driven renaissance, where shoppers of all income levels are more closely scrutinising cosmetics, their claims and their price tags. Even low-priced brands like E.l.f Beauty and mid-market lines like Rhode and Summer Fridays have to demonstrate their quality and uniqueness.
Regardless of whether a customer is a billionaire or on minimum wage, everybody likes to feel like they got a good deal.
Disclosure: LVMH is part of a group of investors who, together, hold a minority interest in The Business of Fashion. All investors have signed shareholders’ documentation guaranteeing BoF’s complete editorial independence.
