regularly in the media

now fat squiggles of color (yellow, blue, red, green) on tunics; the jewelry became big and loopy, and sometimes cagily evoked John Chamberlain’s crushed metal sculptures. Antoine to run shoemaker Berluti, then this month he installed his daughter, Delphine, as executive vice president of Louis Vuitton. While her brief is to revive the handbag maker and Antoine’s task is to transform Berluti into a menswear titan, Arnault is auditioning both for another job: his own. At 64, the chief executive officer of  Hermes Victoria bagLVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA (MC), already qualifies for his state pension. He hasn’t signaled he’s tiring of running the world’s largest luxury-goods company, but “at some point there is an element of succession that needs to take place,” said Berenberg analyst John Guy. Giving his children greater responsibility allows Arnault to test them, Guy said. Arnault knows a thing or two about fomenting rivalries. He was invited into LVMH in the 1980s by Henry Racamier, an heir to Vuitton, who was feuding with another faction in the company. Arnault helped Racamier see off his chief rival, then ousted Racamier and took over the bag maker. It was a clever show, in more ways 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; the sculptural metal heels on shoes, relating to contemporary art (and a cobbler’s nightmare); the reworking of some of her earlier  Hermes Vintagefabrics, like black netting for skirts, and a very smart continuation of her fall proportions.as sales slow from Barcelona to Beijing. Delphine’s experience at the more-exclusive Dior brand will help move Vuitton upscale, Vuitton CEO Michael Burke said in a statement when she was appointed. LVMH, which doesn’t break out revenue by brand, in April posted its weakest fashion and leather-goods sales growth since 2009. Vuitton revenue reached about 7.3 billion euros in 2012, accounting for more than 70 percent of sales at the fashion and leather goods division, HSBC estimates. Antoine Arnault is more gregarious. An accomplished poker player -- his winnings exceed $600,000, according to Pokerpages.com --

 he appears regularly in the media, from Paris Match to The New York Times’s style magazine. And he dates model Natalia Vodianova, the face of Guerlain perfume and Etam lingerie. Mikhail Gorbachev Antoine, who joined LVMH in 2002 after studying at Insead and HEC Montreal, knows how to connect and empathize with people, according to Concetta Lanciaux, a Hermes Walletsformer director of human resources at LVMH who mentored him while she worked as an aide to his father. She now runs her own advisory firm. The appealing part of this collection was the notion of long, slim tunic over a flared, below-the-the knee skirt — be it A-line or pleated with an asymmetrical hemline. And one of the best examples (anyway, the least overwrought) was a tank top in what looked like navy linen with a matching skirt and a green plaid undershirt that seemed based on a Canal Street plastic shopper. But then this collection was a mixed bag: strong on those sculptural accessories and Ms. Philo’s unmatched sense of élan, but also highly fragmented and, in terms of shapes, a bit clunky.