When the French luxury goods conglomerate LVMH agreed to pay about $175 million to underwrite the organizing committee for the Paris Olympics, the company, owned by France’s richest person, Bernard Arnault, asked for more than any previous sponsor had ever done. Organizers of the Games, desperate for that cash, appeared to have said yes at every turn.
The medals? Made by the LVMH-owned jeweler Chaumet. The French parade uniforms? Made by the LVMH-owned label Berluti. The medal trays for every event? The unmistakable checkerboard pattern of Louis Vuitton. And on and on it went. But there was one secret that had been held back, Antoine Arnault, who is Bernard Arnault’s son and the family’s representative to the Olympics, told a gathering of well-heeled Parisians on the eve of the Games.