NEW YORK — As vote counting continues in some states Saturday, Republicans seem prone to take again the Home of Representatives — albeit by a slim margin — whereas Democrats secured management of the Senate.
Republicans are nonetheless in need of reclaiming the Home however want to select up fewer of the remaining seats than Democrats to safe a majority.
Whereas preelection polls pointed to a Republican landslide, leads to many states turned out to be disappointing for the GOP as Democrats pushed again.
Asian People are a fast-growing and more and more influential bloc of voters, with the potential to swing the end result of native congressional elections. The outcomes of the midterms additionally will have an effect on U.S. financial and overseas coverage towards Asian international locations.
Entries embrace materials from wire providers and different sources. Listed below are the newest developments:
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Saturday, Nov. 12 (New York time)
10:40 p.m. U.S. President Joe Biden says he was “extremely happy” with the turnout within the U.S. election after Democrats clinched management of the Senate, a significant victory for the president as he seems to his subsequent two years in workplace, in response to Reuters.
Talking to reporters in Cambodia forward of an East Asia Summit, Biden stated the turnout was a mirrored image of the standard of candidates his occasion was fielding.
9:50 p.m. The Related Press stories that Democrats saved management of the Senate on Saturday, as Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s victory in Nevada gave Democrats the 50 seats they wanted to maintain the Senate.
8:50 a.m. The Related Press stories that in Nevada, Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto was operating barely behind Republican Adam Laxalt. With the remaining tens of 1000’s of uncounted ballots primarily coming from the state’s city cores, her marketing campaign expressed optimism she may overtake her challenger. Laxalt, in the meantime, has steadily predicted he’ll keep within the lead because the depend drags on.
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Friday, Nov. 11
11:25 p.m. Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly wins his bid for reelection in Arizona, a essential swing state, defeating Republican enterprise capitalist Blake Masters to place his occasion one victory away from clinching management of the chamber for the following two years of Joe Biden’s presidency.
As of now, Republicans and Democrats each maintain 49 seats within the 100-seat Senate. If the Democrats attain 50, the liberal occasion may have management of the higher chamber as a result of Vice President Kamala Harris holds the tiebreaker vote.
Of the 2 states that do not have a transparent winner but, Nevada continues to be counting votes. Georgia is about to carry a runoff on Dec. 6.
Wednesday, Nov. 9
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9:53 p.m. Republicans inched nearer to a slim Home majority, whereas management of the Senate hinged on a number of tight races, The Related Press stories.
Both occasion may safe a Senate majority with wins in each Nevada and Arizona — the place the races had been too early to name. However there was a robust risk that, for the second time in two years, the Senate majority may come all the way down to a runoff in Georgia subsequent month.
Supporters cheer U.S. Home Republican Chief Kevin McCarthy at a late occasion on Nov. 9 in Washington.
Within the Home, Republicans on Wednesday evening had been inside a dozen seats of the 218 wanted to take management, whereas Democrats saved seats in districts from Virginia to Pennsylvania to Kansas and lots of West Coast contests had been nonetheless too early to name.
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5:21 p.m. U.S. President Joe Biden speaks to reporters on the midterm elections, saying that Nov. 8 was “a great day, I believe for democracy, and I believe it was a great day for America.”
“Whereas the press and the pundits [were] predicting an enormous pink wave, it did not occur,” he stated.
On operating once more in 2024, Biden stated that his intention is to however that he hasn’t made a ultimate resolution but. “My guess is it would be early subsequent 12 months we make that judgment,” he stated.
Aside from the election, when requested whether or not he would inform Chinese language President Xi Jinping at a potential assembly this month that he’s dedicated to defending Taiwan militarily, Biden stated that “what I need to do with him once we discuss is lay out what … every of our pink strains are, perceive what he believes to be within the essential nationwide pursuits of China, what I do know to be the essential pursuits of the USA, and to find out whether or not or not they battle with each other.”
“The Taiwan doctrine has not modified in any respect from the very starting,” he added.
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U.S. President Joe Biden pauses as he discusses the 2022 U.S. midterm election outcomes throughout a information convention on the White Home in Washington on Nov. 9.
4:20 p.m. Wall Avenue ends sharply decrease as Republican good points in midterm elections seem extra modest than some anticipated. Preliminary information exhibits roughly 2% losses for the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Common and Nasdaq composite.
“I believe we had been in a novel scenario the place the extra the Republicans received, the higher off the market would have been,” says Jay Hatfield, CEO of Infrastructure Capital Administration in New York. “Not less than there would have been some shares strongly rallying, like protection and vitality shares.”
Clear vitality shares — which generally profit below Democratic management — rose, with the Invesco Photo voltaic ETF up for the day.
2:30 p.m. Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Republican challenger Herschel Walker will meet in a Dec. 6 runoff after neither reached the overall election majority required below state legislation, Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger confirms, in response to the BBC.
The U.S. Senate race in Georgia between Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker will go to a Dec. 6 runoff.
Except both the Democrats or the Republicans sweep the 2 remaining tight U.S. Senate races — in Arizona and Nevada — the runoff election will determine which occasion controls the Senate.
1:10 p.m. Sen. Ron Johnson is projected to win reelection in Wisconsin, beating Democratic challenger Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes in a hotly contested race, in response to The Related Press. Johnson’s win bolsters Republicans’ hope of successful again management of the Senate.
10:15 a.m. Voters in conservative Kentucky reject a poll measure that will have established that the state’s structure doesn’t shield or acknowledge a lady’s proper to an abortion.
Voters in Michigan, California and Vermont assist poll initiatives enshrining abortion rights of their state constitutions.
Democratic Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer celebrates her reelection in Detroit.
9 a.m. Democrats win elections for governor within the “blue wall” states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, enabling them to defend towards Republican-dominated state legislatures on points resembling abortion rights and truthful elections.
Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Tony Evers of Wisconsin are reelected, whereas Josh Shapiro will succeed an outgoing Democratic governor in Pennsylvania, Edison Analysis tasks. The three states served as a “blue wall” that helped President Joe Biden defeat Donald Trump in 2020, when Republican officers tried to overturn these outcomes.
8 a.m. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul wins her bid for a full time period towards Lee Zeldin, a Republican member of the U.S. Home. The Democrat’s victory comes after American semiconductor agency Micron Know-how stated in October it might make investments as much as $100 billion to construct a brand new plant in central New York.
3 a.m. In an enormous victory for Democrats, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman defeats Trump-backed Mehmet Oz to seize Pennsylvania’s Senate race, flipping a seat that had been in Republican palms.
Fetterman, 53, suffered a near-fatal stroke in Might, and returned to campaigning months later with hesitant, altered speech.
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Supporters attend an election evening occasion for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate John Fetterman in Pittsburgh.
11:09 p.m. Republicans proceed to hunt for the one-seat acquire wanted to manage the U.S. Senate, however neither occasion has flipped a seat to date.
J.D. Vance retains Ohio’s open Senate seat in Republican palms, defeating Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan in a race that featured anti-China rhetoric. Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet wins reelection in Colorado, whereas Republican incumbent Chuck Grassley of Iowa additionally wins one other time period.
10:30 p.m. Republicans aimed to flip three Home districts in Virginia thought of bellwethers for the nation, however look prone to accept one — an final result that portends vital Republican good points however not a tsunami.
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Democratic Rep. Jennifer Wexton defeated Republican Hung Cao within the tenth District, seen because the hardest of the three for the Republicans to flip.
Republican Jen Kiggans ousted Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria, a former Navy commander, within the 2nd District, seen as the best for Republicans to take.
Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA officer, narrowly leads Republican Yesli Vega within the seventh District with 95% of the vote counted.
10:28 p.m. Georgia is perhaps dealing with one other U.S. Senate runoff. Republican Herschel Walker leads Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock 49.5% to 48.6% with almost 70% of the vote counted. But when neither reaches 50%, the 2 main candidates advance to a runoff in December. Warnock received a runoff in January 2021 for the ultimate two years of the Senate time period.
9:23 p.m. Democratic Legal professional Basic Maura Healey has been elected governor of Massachusetts, making historical past because the nation’s first brazenly lesbian governor, AP stories.
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9:21 p.m. A decide in Arizona’s Maricopa County rejects a Republican request to maintain polls open previous their traditional closing time of seven p.m. after digital vote-counting machines malfunctioned at some precincts. The decide says Republicans offered no proof {that a} voter was unable to forged a poll due to the machine issues and famous that the lawsuit was filed late within the day regardless of the problems being identified because the morning.
9:01 p.m. Democrat Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Republican Rand Paul of Kentucky and Democrat Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut are among the many U.S. senators to win reelection. Duckworth was born in Bangkok and speaks Thai and Indonesian. In 2004, she was deployed as a helicopter pilot to Iraq, the place she misplaced each legs in a crash.
8:43 p.m. Republican Anna Paulina Luna, a U.S. Air Pressure veteran, flips Florida’s thirteenth Congressional District seat, beating Democrat Eric Lynn, a former Obama administration official. This suburban Tampa district is certainly one of a number of Democratic-held seats in Florida that Republicans are prone to choose up, because of a brand new district map backed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. Republicans want solely a internet pickup of 5 seats to take management of the Home.
8:10 p.m. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis wins a second time period in Florida by defeating Democratic challenger Charlie Crist in what was extensively seen as a precursor to a DeSantis presidential run in 2024 — which may put him in a major battle with Donald Trump.
DeSantis has been on the forefront of various the nation’s partisan fights, bucking COVID-19 restrictions whereas backing a legislation limiting dialogue of LGBTQ points in colleges.
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8 p.m. A number of extra states shut their polls together with Michigan, the place a high-profile contest for governor is underway, and Pennsylvania, the place Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman and Republican rival Mehmet Oz are locked in what is anticipated to be a good Senate race.
7:18 p.m. Information shops together with The Related Press undertaking that Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina will win reelection and that Rep. Peter Welch will win the Senate race contested in Vermont, maintaining that seat in Democratic palms. Each victories had been anticipated.
7 p.m. Polls shut in Georgia — the place a vital Senate seat is up for grabs –South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia and the remainder of Indiana and Kentucky.
A voter casts his poll for midterm elections at a polling station in Marietta, Georgia.
6 p.m. The primary U.S. polls shut in components of the states of Kentucky and Indiana, the place districts are anticipated to announce outcomes quickly.
4:30 p.m. Donald Trump, posting on his Reality Social platform, tells folks to protest in Detroit, apparently referring to a software program glitch that instructed some in-person voters that that they had already requested an absentee poll.
“The Absentee Poll scenario in Detroit is REALLY BAD. Persons are displaying as much as Vote to be instructed, ‘sorry, you’ve gotten already voted,’” he writes. “Protest, Protest, Protest!”
3:45 p.m. Issues with dozens of digital vote-counting machines within the battleground state of Arizona are sparking false claims of proof of election fraud.
Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer instructed reporters early Tuesday that about 20% of the machines within the state’s most populous county had been malfunctioning, and that technicians had been being deployed to repair them. All votes will likely be counted, stated Richer, who anticipated that election deniers would “exploit” the difficulty.
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“Stories are coming in from Arizona that the Voting Machines should not correctly working in predominantly Republican/Conservative areas,” former President Donald Trump stated in an announcement. “Right here we go once more? The folks is not going to stand for it!!”
Voters wait in line to forged their ballots within the midterm elections in Phoenix, Arizona.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, who has echoed Trump’s false claims of a stolen 2020 election, additionally seized on the machine issues, issuing a “voter alert” on her Twitter account.
Barricades have been erected across the county’s elections workplace in central Phoenix in anticipation of potential protests.
3:20 p.m. Asian People concern additional violent assaults towards them nationwide as candidates from each events intensify their anti-China rhetoric.
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Tim Ryan, the Ohio Democratic candidate for the Senate, has repeatedly attacked Beijing for job losses and rising costs within the U.S. In late September, he tweeted, “Unhealthy commerce offers have screwed Ohio. China is successful. Employees are dropping.”
Ryan’s Republican opponent, J.D. Vance, has expressed comparable sentiments.
“We’re actually not in an amazing place in Ohio by way of this race,” stated Jona Hilario, a member of the Asian American Midwest Progressives advocacy group.
In the meantime, U.S. Rep. Michelle Park Metal — a California Republican and a Korean American — has labeled her Taiwanese American Democratic opponent Jay Chen as a communist and “China’s alternative” in a closely Vietnamese neighborhood.
2:20 p.m. Former President Donald Trump predicts a “nice evening” for Republicans, whereas the present occupant of the White Home, Joe Biden, warns that Democrats face a “powerful” battle as midterm voting continues.
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10:40 a.m. Underneath strain from a Republican lawsuit, Philadelphia officers determine to deliver again a time-consuming vote-counting course of meant to forestall double voting.
Philadelphia metropolis commissioners voted at a particular assembly to reinstate a course of referred to as “ballot e book reconciliation.”
The choice will delay the vote depend in one of the hotly contested battleground states, the place Democratic candidate Lt. Gov. John Fetterman and Republican rival Mehmet Oz are locked in a good Senate race.
9:45 a.m. Officers are seeing no credible threats towards U.S. voting machines or ballot books throughout the elections, Reuters stories, citing a senior federal cybersecurity official. “We see no particular or credible risk to disrupt election infrastructure,” the official tells reporters throughout a scheduled briefing simply as election day was starting.
The official, who briefed journalists on situation of anonymity, says that didn’t imply there can be no hiccups. Officers in New Jersey’s Mercer County say there are “points with voting machines” there and that ballot employees are readily available to assist voters, Reuters stories.
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Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at a rally to assist Republican candidates forward of the midterm elections in Ohio on Nov. 7.
10:50 p.m. Former President Donald Trump says he’ll make a “massive announcement” subsequent week, probably teasing one other presidential run on the eve of the midterms.
“I’ll be making a really massive announcement on Tuesday, Nov. 15, at Mar-a-Lago,” Trump tells a crowd in Ohio throughout a rally, AP stories. Explaining the wait, he provides, “We would like nothing to detract from the significance of tomorrow.”
Trump has stated in current days that he would “very, very, very most likely” run once more.
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4:20 p.m. Wall Avenue ends sharply increased as traders see a possible win for the Republican Get together within the Home of Representatives within the U.S. midterm elections. Republican management of the Home would threaten Biden’s legislative agenda with gridlock, dooming tax hikes. The Dow Jones Industrial Common completed 1.3% increased than final Friday.
With Republicans favored take management of the Home within the U.S. midterm elections, traders noticed a higher probability of tax hikes not occurring.
6:53 a.m. Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin says he has interfered in U.S. elections and can proceed doing so — “rigorously, precisely, surgically and in our personal manner, as we all know the right way to do” — the primary such admission from somebody implicated by Washington. His remarks are available in response to a request for remark from a Russian information website.
Prigozhin, often known as “Putin’s chef” as a result of his catering firm operates Kremlin contracts, has been formally accused of sponsoring Russia-based “troll farms” that search to affect American politics. He has been hit by U.S., British and European Union sanctions.
Sunday, Nov. 6
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7:44 p.m. President Joe Biden, visiting New York’s suburban Westchester County to marketing campaign for Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, warns {that a} Republican win in Tuesday’s midterm elections may weaken U.S. democracy.
Former President Donald Trump, at a rally in Miami, recycles lots of his unfounded claims about 2020 election fraud and hints that he could announce one other presidential bid quickly.
Republicans have hammered Biden for top inflation and elevated crime within the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Democrats face grim prospects regardless of fulfilling Biden’s guarantees to spice up clean-energy incentives and rebuild crumbling roads and bridges.
Supporters of former U.S. President Donald Trump anticipate him to talk throughout a rally in Miami on Nov. 6.
5 p.m. Here is some recommendation for anybody following the U.S. midterm elections on Tuesday: Be prepared for a protracted evening and possibly days of ready earlier than it is clear whether or not Republicans or President Joe Biden’s Democrats will management Congress.
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All 435 seats within the U.S. Home of Representatives are up for grabs, as are 35 U.S. Senate seats and 36 governorships. Republicans want to select up 5 seats for a Home majority and only one to manage the Senate. Nonpartisan election forecasters and polls recommend Republicans have a robust probability of successful the Home, with management of the Senate prone to be nearer fought.
4 p.m. The U.S. authorities has warned of potential makes an attempt by Russia and China to undermine voter confidence and widen rifts in American society forward of Tuesday’s midterm elections.
“What they try and do is create instability in our home surroundings after which present that again dwelling — , ‘That is what democracy brings you: instability, riots, January sixth, race hatred,’” stated Scott White, an affiliate professor at George Washington College with a specialty in cybersecurity.
Saturday, Nov. 5
4 p.m. Asian People have been the fastest-growing group of voters over the previous 20 years, and they’ll play an essential position as Democrats and Republicans battle for management of Congress within the midterm elections.
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“The final feeling is that we do not match properly into both the Republican or the Democratic occasion,” stated Angela Hsu, president of the Georgia Asian Pacific American Bar Affiliation. “I believe to a big diploma, it is very a lot swing votes.”
11 a.m. U.S. Democrats and Republicans seem extra divided than ever, however the events have not too long ago discovered widespread floor on China.
Many congressional incumbents from each events tout the CHIPS and Science Act, designed to assist the U.S. compete with China in know-how, in addition to the strict chip export ban on China introduced in October. The tech business has principally given up hope for a U-turn on U.S.-China relations, and now seeks authorities assist that might mitigate the value it’s paying for decoupling.
10 a.m. North Carolina officers have registered 14 cases of potential intimidation or interference with voters and election employees forward of Tuesday’s elections, data offered to Reuters present. These cases wherein election employees have been focused occurred throughout early voting.
In a number of different states, aggressive canvassing ways by Republican-aligned teams have raised voter intimidation considerations amongst election officers and voting rights attorneys.
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Benny Gantz has threatened to leave Israel’s emergency government if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not commit to a new plan for the war with Hamas in Gaza and its aftermath.
In a televised statement on Saturday evening, Gantz, an opposition figure and former general who joined Netanyahu’s coalition in the aftermath of Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, said that his centrist National Unity party would leave the government if his demands were not met by June 8.
Gantz’s ultimatum brings to a head months of tensions within Netanyahu’s government over the handling of the war, and comes just days after defence minister Yoav Gallant slammed Netanyahu for the lack of a postwar plan for Gaza, the enclave Hamas has ruled since 2007.
A six-month-old baby is currently hospitalized after a man allegedly shot the infant several times during an armed home standoff in Surprise, Arizona, about 30 miles north-west of Phoenix.
At about 3am on Friday, the father of the child allegedly broke into the home where the child and mother lived, according to Surprise police. The child’s father did not live in the house, police said, adding that the man held the mother and child hostage for several hours before the mother managed to escape.
According to police, the mother contacted a construction crew and requested that they call 911. They added that she had minor injuries and it remains unclear how she managed to escape.
In a press conference on Friday, Surprise police spokesperson Rick Hernandez said: “She believed the baby was in danger … Officers responded to the residence and, upon arrival, they heard multiple rounds of gunfire coming from inside the residence.”
Hernandez continued: “That was when the officers forced entry. Upon forced entry, our understanding is that officers almost immediately located the injured child, took that injured child and got the child to care.”
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“That baby sustained multiple gunshot wounds and was airlifted to a nearby hospital with serious injuries,” he said, adding that the child’s injuries, which were in its lower extremities, were believed to be non-life-threatening.
While police, including multiple Swat teams, were at the scene, the house caught fire as the child’s father was still inside.
Describing the scene to Arizona’s Family, the news outlet’s drone operator, Hector Holguin, said: “Next thing you know, there was smoke. And after the smoke, there’s a huge ball of fire coming from the back of the house and it just spread from the back all the way to the front … It just progressed. It collapsed the roof.”
As the house burned, a number of nearby residents self-evacuated when they were contacted by police while others chose to shelter in place, said Hernandez, adding: “As the incident progressed, many were asked to leave.”
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Firefighters were able to control the flames by using two ladder trucks to hose down the house as well as the house next door, and were largely able to put out the fire by 4:30pm, Arizona’s Family reports.
It remains unclear how the fire started or what condition the father is in. According to police, an investigation remains under way and the father is not in custody.
“Once the [tactical units] get the clearance to go into that residence, we might have an update on him,” Hernandez said.
It was the image that launched a social media sensation: football superstars Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi hunched over a chess game set atop Louis Vuitton’s signature luggage.
That 2022 campaign image broke the record at the time for most likes on Instagram. Now the world’s biggest luxury house, with more than €20bn in annual sales, is looking to capitalise once again on one of the sporting world’s biggest duos in a new campaign featuring rival tennis virtuosos Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer.
The pairing is a coup for Vuitton chief executive Pietro Beccari. It has been just over a year since he took on one of the luxury sector’s biggest jobs with a mandate to further grow the LVMH-owned brand — which had its origins as a 19th-century luggage-maker — by transforming it into a cultural juggernaut.
“There is no household in the world that doesn’t have [contact with] Louis Vuitton products,” Beccari tells the FT in a video interview from Paris. “There are not a lot of brands that can say they enter the lives of people like we do.”
We are already active in lifestyle and believe we need to be about much more than just buying bags’
Beccari is not just talking about sales of handbags and ready-to-wear fashion — though those more than doubled between 2018 and 2022, according to estimates from HSBC. Now, under the guidance of LVMH chief executive Bernard Arnault and Beccari’s leadership, Louis Vuitton is further pushing back luxury’s boundaries in a bid to reach an ever-wider audience.
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“We are in books, in writing, in editing. We are in music,” the 56-year-old Italian executive says. “We are very much in sports . . . so we are very much covering a spectrum of life that interests people. It is like a magnet for them to become attracted to the brand.”
For Beccari, however, weaving a deepening web of overlaps between popular culture, entertainment and brand identity is strategic and key to the megabrand’s future: “For every show Pharrell has done so far, we have always had new songs coming out” — the latest of which was produced for Miley Cyrus and played for the first time at Louis Vuitton’s latest autumn/winter 2024 menswear show.
Within the same season, “Pharrell also launched the cowboy hat and now you’re seeing that in the US just about everywhere. Even Beyoncé has an album supporting cowboy culture [for which Pharrell has also written a few songs]”, says Beccari. “These are examples of our brand in luxury, not just in selling bags, but having an influence on culture.”
However, the increasing ubiquity of Louis Vuitton presents its own challenge as the brand attempts to balance accessibility against losing the veneer of exclusivity that is essential to commanding the prestige and price points of luxury. “We’ll see if I’m good at it or not in two to three years . . . but this is an eternal dilemma,” says Beccari.
Louis Vuitton’s control of its distribution network and policy of never discounting its products are another advantage, according to Beccari. He also points to its care system, which allows customers to bring back products purchased from the brand to be repaired.
“We need to preserve our desirability despite our visibility and that’s the biggest challenge that we have,” Beccari says. “We are making sure that the levers we put in place will pay off in the long term, and I believe that this campaign [with Nadal and Federer] will help increase the desirability of the brand in the long run.”
Still, taking Louis Vuitton to the next level is being made more challenging due to a sector-wide slowdown in luxury sales following a multi-year boom during the pandemic. Brands with a broader, more aspirational client base such as Louis Vuitton have been hit harder by the slowdown than competitors like Hermès, which cater to the top tier of wealthy clients.
The darkening outlook in the key Chinese market, which fuelled growth for much of the past decade, also presents a challenge to the sector as a whole. “Beccari comes at a pretty difficult time because the industry is going through quite a bit of a slowdown, and notably the rebound in Chinese consumption is not at the level most industry managers would have hoped for a few months ago,” says Erwan Rambourg, global head of consumer and retail research at HSBC.
We sell excellence, quality, success and optimism. In a way, the notion of travel and adventure in life is a mirror of that’
Beccari, however, has a naturally competitive nature, having previously been a professional footballer in Italy’s second division in his early life, as well as a coach. Born in a small town in Italy’s Parma region, Beccari was recruited to LVMH from mass market shampoo-maker Henkel in 2006.
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He quickly rose through the ranks at the luxury group, first leading fashion brand Fendi before being appointed CEO of Dior, the group’s second-biggest brand by sales, in 2018. Under his leadership, Dior’s sales quadrupled, according to HSBC estimates, by expanding its market share across women’s and men’s fashion, leather goods, jewellery and homewares. He also oversaw the renovation of Dior’s flagship at 30 Avenue Montaigne in Paris, which includes a museum, restaurant and private suite.
Beccari has similar ambitions to leverage Louis Vuitton’s pedigree to expand its offering in hospitality. It already operates an airport lounge in Doha and restaurants in Osaka, Chengdu and Seoul. A large-scale project on Paris’s Champs Elysées, still currently under construction, is widely expected to include a Louis Vuitton-branded hotel.
With Federer and Nadal, Beccari is making good on a project he first conceived back in 2007, when he was executive vice-president of marketing and communications at Louis Vuitton, with Antoine Arnault, Bernard Arnault’s eldest son and then-director of communications at Louis Vuitton.
It is a revival of the Core Values campaign that first began in 2007 and ran into the 2010s. The latest iteration shows Federer and Nadal, photographed by Annie Leibovitz, trekking through the jagged peaks of Italy’s Dolomites mountain range, both sporting branded backpacks (Federer in a classic monogram Christopher style and Nadal in a monogram Eclipse version).
Was it difficult getting the two superstars together? “Not at all,” insists Beccari. “They are good friends and see each other privately. It was a rivalry that became a friendship. They are proud of it and I think they set an incredible example.”
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“We sell excellence, quality, success and optimism. In a way, the notion of travel and adventure in life is a mirror of that,” Beccari continues, and the driving force behind LVMH’s sponsorship of this summer’s Paris Olympics.
For the executive, Nadal and Federer epitomise the Olympic spirit. “I think nobody more than them represents this extreme, ferocious competition that becomes friendship, which is exactly what sports should be.”
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