Gabrielle Chanel died in 1971 in her legendary room at the Ritz Hotel in Paris (the same where she flirted with the Nazis), but her name remains a must in the world of fashion and cosmetics, emblem of luxury and super luxury, since in 1924 she partnered with the brothers Paul and Pierre Wertheimer, who acquired 70% of the company. The famous designer felt that the Wertheimer brothers were getting rich at her expense and she wanted to take advantage of the anti-Semitic laws during the occupation of Paris to try to regain her brand, which "was still owned by Jews."
After the war, the legal battle ended up in court, with Coco, as Gabrielle Chanel was called, taking refuge in Switzerland and pursued by the stigma of collaborationism. Until Pierre Wertheimer, after his brother's death, proposed in 1948 to make a truce and a deal: 2% of the sales of Chanel No. 5 (already by then the most coveted perfume on the planet) and the revival of her career as a designer, which finally materialized in the 1950s.
Gabrielle, as Coco was actually named, continued to have a tense relationship with the Wertheimer family, when control of the company temporarily passed to "little Jacques," as she herself called Pierre's only son. Elian Heilbronn, Jacques' wife, known for being addicted and incompetent, encouraged her two sons - Alain and Gérard - in 1965 to put their father under guardianship and take over the helm of the company. When Coco Chanel died in 1971, while preparing her last spring collection, her very personal brand was once again thriving.
Alain and Gérard Wertheimer, with an estimated fortune of 90,000 million euros, are currently the third richest family in France, surpassed only by the Hermès heirs and by Bernard Arnault, and ahead of Françoise Bettencourt and François Pinault, according to the Challenges ranking. Their fortune has been increasing over the years thanks to the profitability of the company: 5,000 million euros as an extraordinary dividend just this year that will be distributed from Chanel's 2025 accounts. The company closed the year with revenues of 17,027 million euros and a profit close to 2,579 million. The two manage their empire from Switzerland with maximum discretion, carefully measuring their appearances and granting few interviews. They have a well-earned reputation for being invisible.
Both are wine enthusiasts (owners of wineries like Château Rauzan-Ségla in Bordeaux) and possess one of the largest private art collections, with works by Picasso and Giacometti among others. Gérard is also a lover of horse racing and has had up to 400 horses in his own stable.
"Alain is the brain, the one who makes the big strategic decisions, and Gérard is more warm and approachable," stated Chanel's CFO Philipe Blondiaux in statements to Le Monde. Both are already of advanced age - 77 and 75 respectively - but they have not yet shown who will succeed them at the helm of the empire.
Nathaniel Wertheimer (Alain's son) has held strategic positions at Chanel in the last five years, and David Wertheimer (Gérard's son) has founded his own private equity firm. However, standing out between the two is an outsider who is rising through the ranks: Arthur Heilbronn, 38 years old, somewhat like the golden nephew (son of Charles, stepbrother of Alain and Gérard).
Despite the official silence, specialized magazines like Fashion Network take for granted that he is the chosen one for succession, Arthur Heilbronn, a graduate of Harvard Business School, former banker at Goldman Sachs, and CEO of Mousse Partners, the investment division of the Mousse Investments holding (based in the Cayman Islands) linked to the Chanel group and with ramifications in the media, digital advertising, food, and biotechnology sectors.
Arthur's rise was planned beforehand by his mother, Eliane Heilbronn, who reached a hundred years before her death and was considered the matriarch of the clan. After all, it was she who paved the way for Alain and Gérard, the duo who have led Chanel for half a century, when her marriage to Jacques Wertheimer fell apart in 1952.
Married in second nuptials to lawyer Didier Heilbronn, Eliane had a third son, Charles, and maintained a very special relationship with her grandson Arthur, who apparently has all the qualities to take over the family office and maintain the spirit of the brand. His years at Mousse Partners and his close contact with Michael Rena, a veteran Chanel executive who has since passed away, position him as the favorite for succession over other contenders from the group's fourth generation.
Along with the Rothschilds or the Goldschmidts, the Wertheimers are part of a dynasty of Jewish families from European aristocracy. Their origins are in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, with direct links to the court of Leopold I of Habsburg. The French branch of the family has its origins in Lower Alsace. Alexandre Wertheimer, born in 1705 in Ottrott, is the furthest known ancestor. Family businesses have traditionally been linked to Bourjois cosmetics. The English branch was portrayed in 1898 by the American post-impressionist painter John Singer Sargent.