Early Tuesday, just two days after its extravagant Cruise show at the Niterói Contemporary Art Museum in Rio de Janeiro, Louis Vuitton experienced the downside of the applause it had attracted as the first major European brand to bring a fashion show to Brazil: Its Ipanema store was robbed.
According to a Brazilian spokesman for Louis Vuitton, thieves broke in at 2 a.m. and stole handbags worth around 500,000 reals, or about $140,000. The military police later secured the store, the spokesman said, as many local customers and tourists were lining up to buy items as a result of the show. "They came after the robbers," the spokesman noted.
The theft could be seen as either karmic justice for daring to bring a very exclusive event to a city and country in the throes of economic turmoil and political unrest, or perhaps the result of inciting so much desire and bringing so much attention to the brand that criminals realized there could be a lucrative black market for its goods. (Coincidentally, part of the Vuitton itinerary for its Cruise guests was shopping in Ipanema, an affluent neighborhood of Rio, on Sunday.) Either way, the timing of the theft probably was not a coincidence. It will be interesting to see what lesson, if any, brands draw from the event, especially as the Cruise shows continue to escalate in far-flung destinations.
Louis Vuitton has not commented.
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