You wouldn't be able to identify them without knowing them. Alain and Gérard Wertheimer, 75 and 73, never sit in the front row at the haute couture shows of Chanel, the luxury fashion house 100% owned by them, preferring instead to remain a few meters higher up, where the light is less harsh, far away from the lenses and cameras. Fashion regulars wouldn't be able to spot them backstage either when everyone crowds around the designer and his assistants to congratulate them. They've already left by then, felt hats on their heads, discreetly but surely fleeing the noise and crowds. "Attending with the goal of not being seen is the opposite of what most people do!" quipped one of their friends.

The third-richest French family, behind the fortunes of Bernard Arnault and Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, and the 40^th according to the world ranking established by the business magazine Forbes, doesn't like having their photo taken. "Even their select few friends who snap a picture of them with their phones at dinner parties must promise not to share it," said one of the few people familiar with the soirées they organize in Paris and in the houses the two brothers own close to Deauville, the Normandy town they frequent more often than fashion shows.

Seeing their names mentioned in the press is enough to worry them. It even took a great deal of negotiation before they agreed, in lieu of posing for a Le Monde photographer, to send a snapshot of themselves taken on June 25 during the fall-winter collection fashion show at the Palais Garnier in Paris. Before then, only a few old images of the duo existed, captured on the racecourse with England's Queen Elizabeth II, another horse enthusiast.

The Wertheimers have been so successful in exercising discretion that on January 20, 2022, at the inauguration of 19M, the gorgeous venue Chanel devotes to the art and fashion trades's highly skilled artisans (embroiderers, lacemakers and silk-makers), they weren't the ones who greeted President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte, for fear of appearing on television. Nor can they ever be seen at official dinners at the Elysée, where luxury industry emperor Bernard Arnault sits as if he were a head of state.

A corporate lawyer working regularly for the famous fashion house recounted how she once met Alain Wertheimer in front of an elevator, "wearing a dark coat, hat in hand, very well-mannered, but almost invisible." Seeing her about to take the lift at his sides, he gave up his spot, preferring to take the stairs instead. Only later did she realize he was the prestigious company's executive president. A former Chanel figure also remembers Alain being turned away at the entrance to a haute couture show in the heart of New York's Central Park, where he lives, because he had forgotten his invitation. No one believed this gentleman, whose face and name meant nothing to anyone, could be the owner.

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