Louis Vuitton won its $1.5 million fight with a beloved Chinese tea chain. The backlash may have cost it hundreds more

The trouble started with a flower.

Louis Vuitton sued Chinese milk tea chain Molly Tea over its four-petaled logo that it argued looked too much like its famous monogram.

The French luxury house won a $1.5 million judgment in June, but the victory sparked backlash in China and may have had an unforeseen cost.

Revenue at LVMH’s fashion and leather goods division, which includes Louis Vuitton, fell to €8.25 billion in the third quarter of 2026 from €8.50 billion a year earlier, according to LVMH’s earnings report .

Stripping out currency swings and acquisitions, sales fell 5% as Chinese shoppers pulled back.

Luca Solca, managing director of luxury goods at Bernstein, told Fortune the Molly Tea backlash accounted for 2 to 3 percentage points of that decline.

“Without it, for the avoidance of doubt, we could have had -2-3% instead of -5%,” he said.

LVMH was more cautious.

On the Oct.

12 earnings call, CFO Cecile Cabanis said it’s “very difficult to size” Molly Tea’s impact, but said it’s “probably fair to say that it had a negative impact at least at the beginning of the quarter.” The dispute adds to LVMH’s struggles in China, where luxury spending has weakened.

Its Asia excluding Japan category—which accounts for 27% of LVMH’s revenue—went from 4% organic sales growth in the second quarter to a 5% decline in the third, according to its earnings report .

That contrasts with the U.S., where sales grew 5% in the third quarter.

How a flower sparked backlash Louis Vuitton sued Molly Tea in May 2025, four years after the milk tea company was founded, claiming it infringed on seven registered trademarks.

On June 29, a Chinese court sided with Louis Vuitton and ordered Molly Tea to stop using the design and to pay 10.3 million yuan ($1.5 million) in damages.