World's richest man at head of world's newest longevity lab
With a focus on skincare, champagne, and cognac
Longevity Hound
April 08, 2023
Bernard Arnault, currently world’s richest man and the owner of Christian Dior, the newest player in the longevity space
Who we're talking about: Bernard Arnault, the French business magnate and investor. Arnault is the founder and CEO of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the world's largest luxury goods company.
And the news is: 4 days ago, Arnault overtook Elon Musk to became the world's richest man, with an estimated fortune of $201 billion. And just a few days earlier, Christian Dior, the classic fashion brand within Arnault's empire, announced Dior Science, a new longevity project.
“Recent discoveries in the field of longevity are among the fastest and most promising in science today. Driven by an avant-garde spirit for 40 years, Dior Science has invested in the field of Reverse Aging and applies it to the skin with one ambition: to add beauty to the years.”
To achieve this ambition, the avant-garde execs inside Arnault’s organization have assembled an impressive team of 600 researchers, guided by an advisory board of 18 PhD-heavy longevity experts, including professors from Harvard and Stanford Universities, CEOs of longevity startups, and one attractive fitness model.
Why this is a big deal: Dior's stated ambition, "to add beauty to the years," might sound vain. But skin aging is an undeniable part of overall aging. And as I've written in an earlier issue of Long Youthspan, skin aging is about more than just appearance, and can can have bodywide effects.
What's next? It's not clear whether Bernard Arnault will be directly involved with the new anti-aging project, though he did recently name his daughter the new head of Dior.
Still, it wouldn't be surprising if Arnault is secretly motivated to use his billions to slow down or reverse aging. After all, one earlier world’s richest man, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, has already made big investments in longevity, as have many other multi-billionaires.