LMVH Luxury Ventures Takes Minority Stake in Aimé Leon Dore

The walls between high fashion and streetwear continue to crumble. In the latest news demonstrating luxury fashion house Louis Vuitton's commitment to the burgeoning streetwear scene, WWD reported today that the house's Luxury Ventures arm had purchased a minority stake in the NYC brand Aimé Leon Dore. The amount of the investment is undisclosed at this time.

Aimé Leon Dore is one of the leading independent designers blurring the lines between prep and traditional streetwear. Founded in 2014 by Teddy Santis, the brand has emerged into the spotlight in recent years partially for their high profile sneaker collaborations with New Balance, which have become staples of the contemporary sneaker market. Santis even took up the mantle of Creative Director of New Balance's Made in USA line last year.

Aside from their sneaker collaborations, ALD boasts a roster of exceptional lines on a seasonal basis, incorporating influences of classic Americana and workwear coupled with flashier colors and aspects of other streetwear motifs. They also consistently drop incredibly well-directed look-books, often utilizing unique models to demonstrate the wearability of their pieces. While numerous brands constantly show how good tall, young, skinny people look in their clothing, ALD has done a good job of varying the representations in their look-books to reveal the myriad of body types that can rock their garments.

This shoot from a few years back is a personal favorite:

Aimé Leon Dore currently only has a flagship store in NYC, but WWD confirmed this morning that Santis and the brand have plans to open up another location in London at some point in the near future.

For now, this most likely won't affect a lot of the external facing aspects of ALD, but LV will provide financial support and consulting for the beloved designer. You can browse all of LMVH Luxury Ventures' investments here to get an idea of who the brand is supporting going forward (they have not updated the site to include ALD yet).

Aimé Leon Dore has quickly made a name for itself as one of the most recognizable and "hyped" brands in the NYC landscape, and it's clear that their moves have caught the attention of the fashion old guard. It will be interesting to watch the designer going forward to determine how an infusion like this will impact their growth, design process and marketing.