joined her father’s company

Mr. Simons included dresses and jewelry inspired by African motifs and colors. They were a small but distinctive part of a cheap hermes bagcollection aimed at reflecting global style. If Mr. Simons was subtle in his approach, Ms. Philo used a magnifying glass in her Céline collection. Delphine is more introvert,” Ortelli said. “Delphine can have a very important role but more in the way of a shareholder or chairman, not a manager. Antoine can be the face of the group.” Delphine and Antoine differ as much as the tasks their father has asked them to do, according to people who have worked with them. The siblings declined to be interviewed for this story. Delphine Arnault, who studied at Edhec Business School in France and at the London School of Economics, is reserved, shrewd and fashion-savvy, according to three people who asked not be identified out of concern for their working relationship with her.

 She joined her father’s company in 2000 Gucci belt for menafter a stint at McKinsey & Co. and Céline, spring 2014. billion-euro acquisition of cashmere clothier Loro Piana SpA in July, according to a person familiar with the situation. He may soon start helping to manage the Italian company, the person said. With three younger children, a nephew and a niece, Bernard Arnault has other potential successors, as well as non-family executives inside and outside LVMH. “At least one of them will show themselves capable of taking over,” Arnault said of his kin in a documentary aired in February on France 5 television. Antoine, at least, hasn’t excluded succeeding his father. “Perhaps. Who knows?” he told Bloomberg Pursuits magazine in 2012.

“But not in the near future.” Valerio Mezzanotti for The New York Times Céline, spring 2014. Those African motifs were now fat squiggles of color (yellow, blue, red, and green mixed with black) on tunics and masculine shirts. The jewelry became big and loopy, and sometimes cagily evoked John Chamberlain’s crushed metal sculptures. It was a clever show, in more Gucci cluthesways than one. Ms. Philo knows how to pile on the eye candy and get everyone worked up. There were the new pillow-shaped leather clutch bags with a silver-rimmed porthole opening; the sculptural metal heels on shoes, relating to contemporary art (and a cobbler’s nightmare); the reworking of some of her earlier fabrics, like enlarged black netting for mid-calf skirts, and a very smart continuation of her fall proportions