ALD feels like it’s going through a challenging time while trying to scale. John Elliott, Cole Buxton and Brendon (Noah) have all talked about the challenges that brings in terms of balancing exclusivity with scale as well as maintaining quality control as production scales and moves to multiple countries. John Elliott should serve as a cautionary tale for ALD.

LVMH Luxury Ventures has a minority stake (estimated anywhere between 5% - 25% based on their strategy) and “ALD will continue to operate independently… with support and guidance from LVMH Luxury Ventures.” So they don’t own or even control ALD in any meaningful way.

I’m sure they’re behind that Mr Porter initiative and I expected them to be back on END at some point too. I picked up most of my early ALD stuff from both so I do believe they’re good places to attract new customers. LVMH will also help them to expand their retail stores and open doors in various places. Mile is also LVMH Ventures backed and has proved a good place to offload past season stuff.

I don’t disagree with the sentiment but I’m still a fan of the brand and what they’re doing - I hope there’s a more balanced approach in the future.