EDHEC Graduates in the Press : THE ARNAULT LEGACY. Delphine ARNAULT in the On-line Wall Street Journal

READY FOR HER CLOSE-UP | Delphine Arnault, the deputy general manager of Christian Dior, also sits on several LVMH boards.

When she does something, she does it all the way, says her brother Antoine.
THE BEATING HEART of the house of Dior is tucked away in what feels like the attic of the hotel particulier at 30 Avenue Montaigne in Paris. Up the grand marble stairway lined with photos of Grace Kelly and Marilyn Monroe, through a warren of corridors painted Dior light gray, are two haute couture
workshops where 60 or so women and a handful of men sit hunched over white tables, stitching by hand.
In the atelier flou, where the gauzy, unstructured frocks are hand-sewn (the other workshop turns out stiffer tailored garments), a woman is putting the fin- ishing touches on a dress with a pattern taken from a painting by Sterling Ruby. Ruby, who works in California and earned his street cred in punk and
skateboard circles, is a friend of Dior's new designer, the Belgian Raf Simons. And Simons is there to carry on Christian Dior's legacy in no small part because of the fierce advocacy of the woman standing next to me, Delphine Arnault, daughter of Bernard Arnault, who owns Dior.
"She was one of the first people I met with leading up to my appointment as artistic director," says Simons. "I felt immediately comfortable. She never made me feel like I was being interviewed for a job—it was more about common vision, common interests, shared aesthetics."
"When we met Raf, " says Delphine, "it was clear that he was going to be able to create a magnificent collection for the house, with much elegance, femininity and modernity. We immediately felt the fit would be perfect, and the codes of Dior were in his vocabulary."
Delphine will never claim credit for bringing Simons onboard, of course. She instinctively avoids the spotlight. And yet she has grown into an increasingly important presence at the legendary couture house. "She was the one who argued for Raf, when there were a lot of other options," says Delphine's younger brother, Antoine, who heads the men's brand Berluti, also owned by their father's LVMH
conglomerate. "She had all her arguments, a well-documented file and everything explained from A to Z. When she does something, she does it all the way."

By JOSHUA LEVINE, Wall Street Journal
Photography by Patrick Demarchelier; Hair by Carole Lasnier; Makeup by Rudy Marmet;
Styling by Ondine Azoulay