How the Wertheimers came to own Chanel
Alain Wertheimer's wealth comes from Chanel, the privately held luxury house that his family has owned for most of a century. The connection began in 1924, when his grandfather Pierre Wertheimer and Pierre's brother Paul, owners of the French cosmetics company Bourjois, agreed to fund the production and distribution of Coco Chanel's perfumes. The new company, Parfums Chanel, gave the Wertheimers the majority of the fragrance business, including Chanel No. 5, while Coco Chanel kept a small share.
The arrangement later became the subject of long disputes between Coco Chanel and the Wertheimers. In 1954, when she reopened her couture house after the war, Pierre Wertheimer financed the return and took ownership of the whole Chanel business in exchange for paying her expenses and a lifetime income. From then on Chanel was a Wertheimer family company.
Alain's father, Jacques Wertheimer, ran the business after Pierre. In 1974 Alain, then in his twenties, took control. The brand had lost some of its luster, and he set about restoring its exclusivity, limiting where the perfumes were sold and investing in advertising. Because the family never sold shares to the public, the growth of Chanel under his leadership accrues to the Wertheimer brothers, who are understood to own the company in equal parts.
Chanel's businesses and family assets
Chanel today operates in several areas:
- Fashion: ready to wear, haute couture, handbags and accessories, sold through Chanel boutiques
- Fragrance and beauty: perfumes such as Chanel No. 5 and Coco Mademoiselle, plus makeup and skincare
- Watches and fine jewelry: including the J12 watch and high jewelry collections, with watchmaking stakes in Switzerland
- Specialty workshops: embroidery, feather, shoe, glove and millinery ateliers acquired over the years and housed since 2021 in the le19M building in Paris
In 2018 the company published annual financial results for the first time, after reorganizing under Chanel Limited, a holding company based in London. Since then it has reported revenue and profit figures each year.
Beyond Chanel, the family owns wine estates in Bordeaux, Château Rauzan-Ségla in Margaux and Château Canon in Saint-Émilion, acquired in the 1990s. Under the name Wertheimer et Frère, the brothers also run a racing and breeding stable that has produced champion horses in France. Alain serves as global executive chairman of Chanel, while the company's daily operations are overseen by a chief executive, Leena Nair since 2022.
Family background and taking control
Alain Wertheimer was born in 1948 in France, the elder son of Jacques Wertheimer. He grew up in a family that had long been involved in perfume and cosmetics, and he was groomed to take a role in the business.
When he took control of Chanel in 1974, the brand's perfumes were widely discounted in drugstores and Coco Chanel had died three years earlier. Alain pulled the fragrances from many outlets, raised their profile through advertising and refocused the company on luxury. In 1983 he hired the designer Karl Lagerfeld as creative director of fashion, a decision credited with reviving the couture and ready to wear lines. Lagerfeld stayed in the role until his death in 2019.
Alain has been based in New York for much of his career. He has worked alongside his younger brother, Gérard, with whom he shares ownership, and the two have consistently resisted offers to sell the company or list its shares, saying Chanel would remain independent.
Privacy, patronage and public role
The Wertheimers are known as one of the most private families in the luxury industry. Alain rarely gives interviews, seldom appears in photographs and leaves most public statements about Chanel to its executives and designers. That reticence has become part of the brand's mystique.
Chanel supports cultural and charitable causes through the Fondation Chanel, created in 2011, which funds projects to improve the economic and social situation of women and girls around the world. The company also backs the arts, including support for craft workshops, film festivals and cultural institutions in France.
Under Alain's chairmanship, Chanel has also invested in preserving traditional French crafts by acquiring specialist ateliers that might otherwise have closed. After Lagerfeld's death, the company named Virginie Viard as creative director, and in 2024 it announced Matthieu Blazy as her successor. These leadership decisions, made by a closely held family company, shape one of the most valuable brands in fashion while ownership remains with the two brothers.