In 2023, Kering made a structural bet: pull its beauty operations in-house, ending the licensing arrangements that had given companies like Coty control over Gucci fragrances. Three years later, Kering Beauté exists. The question is whether it can catch up to competitors who’ve been running this race for decades.
The problem Kering was solving
Before Kering Beauté launched, the group’s houses — Gucci, Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta, Balenciaga — licensed their beauty lines to third-party operators. Coty held the Gucci fragrance license, for example. The arrangement had logic: beauty distribution is complex, production investment is high, and licensees brought immediate industrial expertise.
The downside was significant. Kering was surrendering meaningful margin on high-value categories — a Gucci fragrance retails at €150, with a cost of goods often well below €15. It was also ceding brand narrative control and customer relationship data to partners whose incentives didn’t always align perfectly with the house’s positioning.
LVMH’s vertically integrated beauty model — operating Dior Beauté, Guerlain, and Givenchy Parfums directly — demonstrated the long-term financial upside of keeping beauty in-house.
Three years of infrastructure building
Kering Beauté has been hiring, building production capabilities, and progressively repatriating licenses as contracts expire. The move of Romain Spitzer — formerly CEO of LVMH Fragrance Group — to head Bottega Veneta at Kering signals continued investment in beauty-specific expertise within the group’s leadership layer.
More importantly, it signals that Kering sees Bottega Veneta not just as a leather goods and fashion house, but as a potential beauty brand. That’s a deliberate expansion of the brand’s strategic perimeter.
The gap to close
LVMH Beauté operates at a scale that Kering Beauté can’t replicate quickly. Dior Beauté has thousands of points of sale worldwide, dedicated counter teams, and brand recognition that doesn’t need to be built from scratch. The distribution infrastructure alone took decades.
Kering Beauté starts with a genuine asset: houses whose desirability is real and established. Gucci, Saint Laurent, and Bottega Veneta carry enormous brand equity. The challenge is translating that equity into a fully owned beauty experience — packaging, formulation, fragrance identity, retail — without diluting what makes these houses special.
The patience required
Luxury beauty rewards patience. Hermès took years to develop its own beauty line. LVMH’s beauty empire was built through decades of acquisition and internal investment. Kering is running the same race, but in a more fragmented market landscape — with more sophisticated consumers, more complex distribution channels, and shorter attention spans.
The results of this bet aren’t fully visible yet in Kering’s numbers. Ask again in two or three years.