Kering Buys Into Beauty, L'Oréal Circles Designer Houses

October 23. Business of Fashion filed a piece on Kering's latest beauty moves and L'Oréal's designer-brand appetite. The headline promises seduction. The substance is simpler: two companies want what the other has.

Kering has been buying beauty brands for three years now. Creed in 2023. Smaller fragrance houses since. The logic reads obvious: a luxury group that already owns Gucci and Bottega needs its own perfume distribution, not licensing deals that send margin to Coty or Estée Lauder. L'Oréal, meanwhile, has been circling designer houses. Valentino beauty launched under their roof. Prada beauty, same. Mugler, Maison Margiela fragrances. The Paris giant wants the fashion halo without owning the atelier.

The piece also covers Amouage, the Omani perfume house that somehow crossed from niche-obscure to niche-visible in two years. The brand's creative director is Renaud Salmon, formerly at Memo Paris. He replaced the house's florals-and-oud formula with something closer to contemporary niche: clean musks, woody bases, Instagram-friendly flacons. Amouage now sits at Harrods, Bergdorf, and Selfridges. Three years ago it was mail-order only.

The Meghan Markle angle: her lifestyle brand, American Riviera Orchard, may or may not include beauty. The filing is live, the trademark application includes skincare and fragrance categories. Whether the line actually launches is a separate question. Celebrity beauty brands have a 40 percent failure rate within 18 months, per Euromonitor data from last year. The Duchess has name recognition. She does not have distribution locked.

What this signals: beauty is now the shortcut luxury groups take when they want margin without the cost of running a fashion house. Perfume ships at 80 percent gross margin. A coat ships at 65 percent, if you're lucky. Kering wants in. L'Oréal wants the names. The rest is just packaging.