NEWS: UKRAINE EN GUERRE
French design giants halt sales in Russia.

French lux­u­ry giants have decid­ed to join oth­er com­pa­nies in announc­ing that they will sus­pend their sales in Rus­sia amid the ongo­ing war in Ukraine.

LVMH, Her­mès, Ker­ing and Chanel have decid­ed to tem­porar­i­ly close their stores in Rus­sia, the com­pa­nies announced Friday.

It fol­lows calls from high-end Ukrain­ian stores to “stand up” after the inva­sion of the country.

Until now, lux­u­ry retail­ers have large­ly been exclud­ed from sanc­tions intro­duced by West­ern governments.

But many have found it more dif­fi­cult to do busi­ness and fill orders in the region after mea­sures intro­duced by the Unit­ed King­dom, the Euro­pean Union and the Unit­ed States.

Expen­sive Birkin bag mak­er Her­mès and Swiss Carti­er own­er Richemont were among the first com­pa­nies to announce they would take a break from Russia.

LVMH, which owns brands such as Chris­t­ian Dior, Givenchy and Bul­gari among oth­ers, will close its 124 stores in the coun­try start­ing Sunday.

Chanel, famous for its curly jack­ets, said in a post on LinkedIn, “Giv­en our grow­ing con­cerns about the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion, the increas­ing uncer­tain­ty and the com­plex­i­ty to oper­ate, Chanel has decid­ed to tem­porar­i­ly sus­pend its oper­a­tions in Russia.”

Ker­ing, home to Guc­ci and Saint Lau­rent, has two stores in Rus­sia, as well as 180 employ­ees in the country.

The French com­pa­ny said its deci­sion was due to “grow­ing con­cerns about the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion in Europe.”

This comes after an exec­u­tive of a Ukrain­ian lux­u­ry depart­ment store told the BBC that high-end com­pa­nies should “choose human­i­ty over mon­e­tary gain.”

Marusya Koval, mar­ket­ing direc­tor of Tsum Kyiv, not­ed that some com­pa­nies have promised assis­tance, but have not said whether they would stop sell­ing their prod­ucts in Russia.

Marusya Koval said that fash­ion brands should do more for Ukraine
She said that brands post­ing on social net­works in sup­port of Ukraine “will not help us stop the war.”

Fash­ion house Pra­da, for exam­ple, did not respond to BBC News’ requests for com­ment on whether it would stop sell­ing its prod­ucts in Russia.

In an Insta­gram post ear­li­er this week, it said the war in Ukraine was “a big concern.”

Count­less oth­er com­pa­nies have already announced plans to pull out of Rus­sia after its inva­sion of Ukraine.

Gior­gio Armani did not say whether it planned to stop sales in Rus­sia, but Armani said it told its team not to play any music at its recent fash­ion show in Paris to “com­mu­ni­cate that we are not cel­e­brat­ing here.”

The Tsum Kyiv depart­ment store, like oth­er retail­ers in the Ukrain­ian mar­ket, is clos­ing its doors as Russ­ian troops advance on the capital.

Koval said she wants to see the fash­ion and lux­u­ry indus­try “react imme­di­ate­ly by impos­ing sanc­tions on Russ­ian brands, stores and retailers.”

While afflu­ent Rus­sians are big con­sumers of lux­u­ry goods, ana­lysts say the pro­por­tion of lux­u­ry sales gen­er­at­ed in Rus­sia is small com­pared to the indus­try’s key mar­kets — Chi­na and the Unit­ed States.