Ladies in Luxury

Working in a corporate world of men in grey suits, it was quite nice to come across an article in Time's half-yearly style supplement (supplied by the men in grey suits) about the female CEOs and company Chairmen at the top of the luxury goods industry. Despite the best efforts of the CSR people, the company I work for has no women on the Board and is run by mainly French men of 'a certain age'. I will spare you my usual discourse on this, things are slowly changing, but France is certainly a country which lags behind much of Western Europe at least when it comes to sexual equality.

Women like Yves Saint Laurent CEO Valerie Hermann, who relaunched the brand into the accessories market with the Muse bag, Victoire de Castellane who deisgns fine jewellery for Dior and whose exhibition I stupidly missed at the Bon Marche last year, Vera Wang who has worked hard to set up her own brand after starting out as a shop assistant (albeit at YSL) and Tamara Mellon - although a little less - are to be admired for their determination. Plus it's good to see plenty of women at the head of an industry driven by female consumers.

I have spent time under a female CEO in a much smaller company, running part of her media business for minimum wage and watching as another hugely profitable interest was run with a high turnover of interns. I wonder what these ladies are like to work for. I hope they progress and nurture female talent and justly compensate the people who make their businesses tick.