How a Homeless Teen Created Louis Vuitton

Many of us want to quit trying, at least at some point in life! There are many of
us who blame the circumstances when there are hindrances in our path in life. If
a homeless teen thought the same centuries back, then there wouldn't have been
the prestigious Louis Vuitton presented on this planet! Do you know that a
homeless Teen founded the luxury brand, Louis Vuitton?

This is the story of a teen who inspires the younger generation.

This is the story of a teen who proved that you could reach heights and create
your own mark with willpower and talent.
This is the story of Louis Vuitton…

Chapter 1: A teenage guy who left his home

Louis Vuitton was born in 1821 in Anchay, France. His father was a farmer and
miller, while his mother used to make hats to earn extra cash to support her
family. Because of the Napolian wars, the Vuittons were in bankruptcy, and
Louis started helping his father in farming. He used to work hard every single
minute to earn any extra penny as possible to help feed his family. There were
no education facilities in his village, so he couldn't study in his childhood.
Instead, he worked day and night and helped his mother and father.

When he was ten years old, in 1831, his mother died. He was close to his
mother, and her death took a toll on him. He still tried to move on with
willpower. But soon, his father got remarried, and Louis got a severely ill-
mannered and torturous stepmother. She didn't leave any stone unturned to
torcher him to the core. As witched and abusive as villains in fairytales, she
started controlling and manipulating him, and he had enough! One night, when
he was 13 years old, he left his house completely and started his journey to
Paris. That's where the main story started forming!

Chapter 2: Journey to Paris

After he left his home without informing anyone, he started towards Paris. He
needed to walk all the way as there wasn't any penny or food with him! Many
days, he slept in the forest with an empty stomach covering himself with just
one robe he had! Later, to feed himself, he did various odd jobs, from the helper
in the kitchen to a waiter. He had done whatever jobs he had found and would
get either food or money in return. However, he couldn't get enough money to
afford a stay. That's why again, he used to sleep in the woods with just a robe to
cover himself from the cold!
While doing all these, he never stopped his journey to his destination- Paris! To
cover 290 miles, he took three years. All this time, he worked for artisans and
gained extraordinary skills. He learned to work on metal, fabric, wood, and
stone. He wouldn't have imagined that these skills would take him to a new
level. He welcomed whatever opportunity he got and learned the skill with
100% concentration and hard work.

Chapter 3: The New Opportunity

When he reached Paris, the era of industrialization was going on. During that
time, Louis was able to find work as an apprentice box maker and packer. At
that time, the dresses of the ladies of Paris were so heavy that when they
traveled from one place to another, many boxes were required to pack their
belongings. The packers would pack their dresses, paintings, and things safe and
sound. The box makers would take custom orders to make a box and pack and
unpack them whenever clients travel. And Louis did this job.

This job gave Louis an opportunity to meet wealthy and elite customers who
wanted customized travel boxes that fit their belongings. He started making
various boxes and started exploring and learning the work and techniques. He
worked as hard as he could, and this hard work gave him a new opportunity.

In 1851, the emperor of France got impressed with his fine work and appointed
him as her personal box maker. This was considered to be a recognizable
achievement at that time. Surely it was! Louis had transformed from an
impoverished, homeless teenager to someone who now had a prominent
position among royalty. That was a great accomplishment in and of itself. That's
where the real story began!

Chapter 4: The new business

The appointment given by the emperor boosted his confidence, and his vision
for his future had got widened. He got married and started savings while
working as a personal box maker. Soon, when he turned 33, he used his savings
and established his own business, box-making. He opened his workshop in Paris
and started selling his own quality products. At that time, the boxes would be in
domed shape and made up of leather. This domed shape was not convenient to
pile up the boxes and shift them from one place to another place.

Louis observed this and started his experiments to make the boxes more
convenient for passengers. He found out that the canvas material is lighter,
water resistant, and durable compared to leather and can be used to make boxes.
He also found out that it is possible to make flat surfaces with canvas, which
gives access to pile up the boxes one on another making it easier to transport
them from one place to another. This invention is the mother of modern-day
luggage.

Without a doubt, his invention was a great success. By that time, Louis already
made a name for himself among everyone, especially among the elite
community. His new canvas boxes became a name on the tongue and a status
symbol. Every royal and elite person around the world started ordering these
boxes. In 1859, his business got more demand, and he hired more craftsmen to
make boxes and opened a new workshop outside of Paris, and employed 20
people there. That was the same time when people started traveling more by
trains and boats, and the demand for boxes got increased with time. But, if
everything goes well as we plan, that wouldn't be the life! The same happened
with Louis.

Chapter 5: The Franco-Prussian War and Bouncing Back

When everything was going well in Louis's life, Franco- Prussian war broke out
in 1870, when Louis was 49 years old. Louis and his family had to flee from
Paris and take shelter in a refugee camp. He, along with his family, faced the
pain of hunger. When he returned home in 1871, his home and office were a
complete mess. Everything was lost. The equipment was robbed, and the
windows were destroyed. Everything that he had worked hard for all these
years, he had lost all of them. If he had given up that day, we wouldn't have
talked about him today! He stood up like a warrior and used his saving to buy a
new place for the business. Because of the war, there were many empty shops
available all around Paris. Utilizing this opportunity, Louis bought a new shop
in a must recognized and affluent area and started his business.

In 1872, he brought new designs to his products. He made boxes with beige
colors and attractive stripes. These strips helped people to recognize their
luggage from a far distance. This again got popular among people, and they
loved the modern designs. Even though there came counterfeiting boxes with
the same designs, Louis's quality maintenance made his boxes stand at the
number one position and made people buy only Louis Vuitton's bags. And there
was no turning back for the next 20 years till his death at the age of 70.

Chapter 6: His Son- Georges Vuitton

Louis's son- Goerges Vuitton, who was already assisting his father in their
business, took charge and continued his legacy after his death. He opened a
store in London and expanded the business. In 1896, he came up with a
different idea. During those times, the safety of the luggage was a major issue.
Some thieves would steal the valuables from the piled-up luggage boxes. To
overcome this major inconvenience, Georges created a revolutionary lock
system that could protect the robberies. He also recognized that many box
makers were counterfeiting Louis Vitton's boxes. So, he created the now famous
LV monogram marking the initial letters of his father's name, and started
printing them.

He made the employees train for a very long time to prepare the standard and
qualitative boxes. By the year 1900, the company had recruited 100 employees.
All these employees underwent that long training progress. Even today too, all
the employees undergo training of a minimum of 18 months to a maximum of 2
years to make them experts in making the products.

Later the company became more popular because of the handbag they
customized for the popular French fashion designer- Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel.
Chanel placed a custom order for a Louis Vuitton bag in 1925 so that she could
hold it in her hands. At Gabrielle Chanel's request, the house of Louis Vuitton
created a hand-held replica of one of their pieces of luggage and gave it the
name "Alma." It became very much popular, and she granted her permission to
produce the bag for the general public in the 1930s. After that, they started
making more small handbags like "Keepal" and "Speedy." Before their
handbags entered the market, people used to think that ladies couldn't carry
handbags as they were heavy to carry. But Louis Vuitton's handbags are easy to
carry, elegant, and fashionable in design. They became much more popular, and
ladies started buying them.

Georges Vuitton passed away in 1936, and the company's responsibilities were
taken by his son- Gaston Louis. Within a few years of his taking the charges,
World War 2 was started, and he was forced to shut down the Louis Vuitton
factory as all the contracts were canceled. To save his business, he collaborated
with Nazi Germany. Hadn't he collaborated with enemies then, the brand
wouldn't be alive today!

Chapter 7: LV to LVMH

In 1970, after Gaston passed away, his son-in-law, Henry Racamier, took the
managing responsibilities of Louis Vuitton. Henry already had business
experience, and with this experience, he elevated the brand while marketing it
all around the world. He changed the structure of the company from wholesale
to retail. As a result, by 1978, the Louis Vuitton brand got expanded in many
countries, including Japan and the USA. This expansion caused the company's
sales to grow from 20 million dollars to 260 million dollars in the span of 6
years.
Henry took the next step and made the company public. More than one million
shares were sold at the price of 63.63 dollars. Even though after two months, the
company's stocks got fluctuated, Henry started opening new stores all over the
globe. Some analysts warned him that sales might be reduced as many
counterfeits entered the market. But Henry proved all those analyses wrong, and
by 1987, LV had reached 1 billion dollars in sales. Soon to make the expansion
more manageable and more convenient, the company got merged with Moet-
Hennessy, a company that produced luxurious champaign and cognac, and
became LVMH.

Even though the company allowed Henry to expand his business, there were
conflicts between him and Moet-Hennessy's president- Alain Chevalier. To gain
control, he asked Bernard Arnault, a property developer, to become his ally. He
was unaware of Bernard's motives. Bernard secretly purchased 43% of shares in
LVMH and garnered support from the Moet and Hennessy families. Even
though a legal battle took over, the court favored Bernard, and Henry was
forced to step down.

All this drama took a toll on the sales of Louis Vuitton, and no journalists were
ready to cover the brand. As a result, the sales got dropped severely. But, during
its 100th anniversary, Bernard started collaborating with famous fashion
designers like Vivienne Westwood, Manolo Blahnik, and Isaac Mizrah. They
created unique designs using its monogram, which attracted the attention of
customers, and they started buying the products again. After one year, LV hired
Marc Jacobs, a designer, as their creative director. He launched a ready-to-wear
line, designed the Vernis collection, and also collaborated with artists such as
Stephen Sprouse and Takashi Murakami. Not only this, but LV also expanded
into watches, sunglasses, and jewelry, along with their trademark bags.

Chapter 8: LVMH in present days

Despite all these controversies, Bernard's investment in LVMH got paid off.
Forbes, in 2021, announced him as the wealthiest man in the world with a net
worth of 180 billion dollars, and he always remains to be in the top five list of
richest persons in the world. He has the name ruthless businessman and is called
"Wolf in Cashmere." Because of his ruthless behavior and mergers, today,
LVMH owned 75 fashion and cosmetics brands all around the world. Even
though there are many counterfeits that copy LV and sell fake products, Louis
Vuitton has a special legal team who searches for such brands and is ready to
sew them at any time. With more than 400 stores across the world, each store
present in almost all major cities, Louis Vuitton still has its popularity among
people because of its study maintenance of the quality of the products, and it
will continue to grow in the future too. All this success started from a homeless,
penniless, and mainly ambitious teenager.