It worked with Louis Vuitton in the nineties and Goyard in more recent years — revamping an old-school French trunkmaker, with a new designer and a fresh marketing campaign, seems like a no-fail business.  The latest forgotten brand about to undergo an intentional renaissance is Moynat Malletier, to which Bernard Arnault, CEO of LVMH, just purchased the rights.

Arnault is re-launching the label, which was founded in 1849, with a Parisian flagship store and a new designer.  Ramesh Nair should be able to work the magic Marc Jacobs did when he took over Louis Vuitton fifteen years ago — Nair previously designed for Hermès, Christian Lacroix, and Yohji Yamamoto.

Moynat’s new collection is pricey, starting at $2000 for small leather goods and silk scarves, and hitting $20,000 for custom-made trunks.  That said, based on the success of equivalent re-vamped houses like Goyard, digging up a century-old, forgotten luxury brand, telling the public its story, and releasing new product under its name seems like a surefire business plan.  So, can we expect Moynat to be as ubiquitous as Vuitton in about five years?  At any rate, we’re interested to see if Arnault  has a Moynat ready-to-wear collection in the pipeline — in that case, the brand would perfectly mirror Vuitton.