LVMH is discovering just how challenging it can be to produce luxury goods in the United States. Eleven former employees of Louis Vuitton’s factory in Texas shared with Reuters the site’s issues and poor performance. Reportedly, it is “one of the worst facilities of the French brand”, with leather waste rates twice the norm and product quality falling short of standards. The plant was originally meant to employ 1,000 people – it currently has around 300.
One of Vuitton’s worst factories
Producing luxury in the United States is no easy feat – particularly due to the difficulty in sourcing skilled artisans capable of meeting extremely high-quality standards. Louis Vuitton is learning this the hard way. In 2019, the brand opened a manufacturing site in Alvarado, Texas. Reuters spoke with 11 former employees who described the production problems at the facility.
These included mistakes in cutting, preparation, and assembly processes, leading to as much as 40% of leather being wasted – “while the typical waste rate for leather goods is around 20%” as Reuters points out. Louis Vuitton had assigned the Texas site the production of simpler bags. “It took years just to start producing the basic pockets of the Neverfull bag”, former employees said. Bags that don’t pass quality checks are shredded and sent to incineration.
A “young” factory
“The launch was more difficult than we expected, that’s true”, admits Ludovic Pauchard, Louis Vuitton’s industrial director. However, he states he is “not aware of any issue that would suggest the quality from Texas differs from that of European production”. According to Pauchard, LVMH is “patient” with “a young factory”. Workers at the Texas plant were initially paid $13 per hour. From 2024 onwards, base pay rose to $17 per hour – more than double Texas’ minimum wage of $7.25.
Meanwhile, LVMH secured a range of incentives and tax breaks from Johnson County for establishing its operations there – including a 75% reduction in property taxes for 10 years, estimated to save USD 29 million. In official documents reviewed by Reuters, LVMH stated its goal to “hire 500 people within the first five years”. During the factory’s inauguration (pictured), which was attended by Donald Trump, LVMH boss Bernard Arnault declared: “We will create around 1,000 jobs over the next five years”. As of February 2025, the actual workforce stood just below 300 employees.
Image from a 2019 Instagram post about the inauguration, which sparked significant reactions on social media – including, as highlighted, a sharp comment from designer Nicolas Ghesquière
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