'There is nothing soft about the power these companies have'
Inside Glitz, the French investigative publication which covers the luxury industry as seriously as weapons or oil.
Investigative news publication Glitz Paris is a force to be reckoned with in the luxury and fashion world. Required reading for fashion and luxury executives and priced as such, it launched in Paris in 2022 and is published by Indigo Publications, the investigative group which includes Intelligence Online and La Lettre. Its editorial goal is to reveal the inner workings of the luxury industry.
It quickly established a reputation for hard-hitting stories about these industries, often revealing things that had never been reported in this reclusive and cliquey world. When it’s at its most fascinating, Glitz gives us a hint at how the reclusive and paranoid owners of these luxury giants think and act.
Its influence could be seen when a memo reported in the Financial Times from LVMH chief Bernard Arnault said he had ordered his brands’ managers to stop speaking to a handful of independent outlets, including Glitz. Judging by the output of the publication in the years since, those managers didn’t listen.
I spoke to section editor and reporter Noëmie Leclercq last month, who frequently writes some of the most interesting stories at the publication. She specialises in stories about counterfeiting, lobbying and the second-hand market, and previously wrote for Le Monde Magazine, Vanity Fair and Elle. She also writes a Substack, follow ze money. Her answers have been edited for length and clarity.
I found Glitz because I saw the reporting about Arnault banning the publication, which only made me want to read it more. Why did a publication like Glitz have to exist?
The luxury and fashion industries in French are so big that it’s almost impossible to do journalism without being tied to LVMH. I used to work for Le Monde, and Elle, and we had lots of advertisers that were from LVMH, so it was very difficult to write [about] them. It’s not just for the fashion and luxury publications, the whole media world in France is very tied to these industries, so that’s why Glitz had to exist.
People know us, people read us, I’m not sure if everyone likes us.
What is striking is that Elle Magazine in France, they have to lay off journalists almost every year. And the luxury boom isn’t doing anything for that, even if there’s lot of ads. Glitz is doing very well and each year it’s been doing better than the previous year. All of the houses like Dior, Louis Vuitton, they all have subscriptions to Glitz.
