By Carol Ryan 

This article is being republished as part of our daily reproduction of WSJ.com articles that also appeared in the U.S. print edition of The Wall Street Journal (June 1, 2019).

How do you brush up a luxury brand? First, move it to Paris, then give it a snappier name.

Luxury giant LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton said this week that Jean Patou, a tiny label in which it bought a 70% stake late in 2018, will be renamed Patou.

Like Chanel, the brand was one of the busiest French couture houses of the 1920s, only it hasn't weathered the years quite so well. An early step in the revamp has been to shift the brand's headquarters back to the French capital from Watford, an unglamorous town outside London where its previous majority owner is based.

LVMH founder Bernard Arnault has revived labels before. He got his hands on Christian Dior by purchasing failed textile company Boussac for one French franc in 1984. Although the brand had seen better days, he understood its potential when a New York taxi driver couldn't name the French president but knew of Dior. More than three decades later, it is a multibillion-dollar brand.

Whether LVMH's decision to shorten Jean Patou to plain Patou had anything to do with conversations with New York cabbies is unclear.

Write to Carol Ryan at carol.ryan@wsj.com

 

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 01, 2019 02:47 ET (06:47 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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