Bernard Arnault Quotes

102 Bernard Arnault Quotes

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A good product can last forever.
Bernard Arnault

Vuitton has always been a pioneer.
Bernard Arnault

[On Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessey (LVMH)] We’re the only group that has the ability to manage different activities that cover the entire range of the luxury business.
Bernard Arnault

In order to be able to sell a product at a relatively high price, you have to offer the craftsmanship and quality that goes along with it.
Bernard Arnault

One does not invite a thousand guests to watch a procession of dresses which could be seen on a coat hanger or in a show room.
Bernard Arnault

My relationship to luxury goods is really very rational. It is the only area in which it is possible to make luxury profit margins.
Bernard Arnault

We have unique products.
Bernard Arnault

Our strategy is to trust the creators.
Bernard Arnault

We don’t like failures.
Bernard Arnault

Designers are closer to artists than to engineers.
Bernard Arnault



Every time there’s been a crisis, we’ve gained market share.
Bernard Arnault

We do not put the entire company at risk by introducing all new products all the time.
Bernard Arnault

[On company owned businesses like DFS] If one day we must sell something, first we want to turn it around and make it profitable.
Bernard Arnault

Sometimes you do not succeed.
Bernard Arnault

We learned that genius is not enough to succeed.
Bernard Arnault

The key to success is this duality – timelessness and the utmost modernity.
Bernard Arnault

It is not enough to have a talented designer; the management must be inspired too. The creative process is very disorganized; the production process has to be very rational.
Bernard Arnault

If you deeply appreciate and love what creative people do and how they think, which is usually in unpredictable and irrational ways, then you can start to understand them. And finally, you can see inside their minds and DNA.
Bernard Arnault

In the luxury business you have to build on heritage. On brands, on history… It’s not an easy business, it’s a business of passion that takes time. But when it’s done right the potential is enormous.
Bernard Arnault

I like that combination between creativity and the creative process and the organization needed to make a business like this successful worldwide.
Bernard Arnault



I always was interested in the combination between creation and products. When I was working in my first job engineering construction, what I liked the most was working with architects and making buildings that had this creative side coming from the architect and that were making them a big success. It’s what I do with fashion today, with cosmetics, in this group, is to mix creativity and business sense.
Bernard Arnault

We can see several companies trying to mix an image of luxury with a mass-market approach. In order to be able to sell a product at a relatively high price, you have to offer the craftsmanship and quality that goes along with it. There’s an increase in products that have approximately the same look [as luxury brands] while providing a much lower standard. It’s not counterfeiting, but it is misleading.
Bernard Arnault

Most competitors prefer to show off-mass produced clothing on their catwalks, or indulge in American-style marketing. We are not interested in working this way.
Bernard Arnault

Marc Jacobs, John Galliano and Alexander McQueen are innovators; fashion inventors; artists who create.
Bernard Arnault

[On the credo he lives by at LVMH] What I like is to feel emotion… and I agree even more when I see the sales results.
Bernard Arnault

Products which are customer driven are usually not innovative. Consequently, it is difficult to charge a premium.
Bernard Arnault

[On conducting a market test] You will never be able to predict the success of a product… Obviously we won’t launch a product if the tests clearly show it is going to be a failure, but we won’t use tests to modify products, either… Our strategy is to trust the creators. You have to give them leeway. When creative team believes in a product, you have to trust the team’s gut instinct.
Bernard Arnault

A star brand is current or you would call it fashionable. It is edgy, it has sex appeal, it is modern. In some way, it fulfils a fantasy. It is so new and unique, you want to buy it. You feel as if you must buy it, in fact, or else you won’t be in the moment. You will be left behind.
Bernard Arnault



We don’t like failures. We try to avoid them. That is why with many of our products, we make a limited number. We do not put the entire company at risk by introducing all new products all the time. In any given year in fact, only 15% of our business comes from the new; the rest comes from traditional, proven products – the classics.
Bernard Arnault

Choosing a creator is always difficult. It’s not a question of taking a talented creator and saying, ‘We’ll employ the person in such and such a business and it will work’. It isn’t true. It’s far more complicated. We need to find the talent, the ideas and the personality that can adapt to the spirit, the history of the brand.
Bernard Arnault

When something has to be done, do it! In France we are full of good ideas, but we rarely put them into practice.
Bernard Arnault

[A] Star brand is timeless, modern, fast growing, and highly profitable.
Bernard Arnault

[On insider trading allegations] I am completely cleared.
Bernard Arnault

[On his competition] They saw it was working. And then they said, 'Okay, now we are going to do the same thing.' I think, really, they underestimate the difficulty. They underestimate the time required to make it successful. And my guess is that they will have a very tough time.
Bernard Arnault

[In 2009] In 1998, the Russian economy was on the brink, and then it rebounded. It happened quite quickly. India too—I have no doubt it will rebound.
Bernard Arnault

[In 2009] China is the most interesting part of the world for me now. I go there two or three times a year, most recently in Dalian, where we’ve just opened in a new mall. There are so many people who are getting to the stage where they want to consume, who want to be part of a club.
Bernard Arnault

[In 2009] China is feeling the effects of the crisis, but less than the U.S. And when you consider that Chinese tourists are now buying as much as Japanese tourists, when there were virtually none just 10 years ago, I’m not so worried.
Bernard Arnault

[On philanthropy] It gives people working at the group a feeling that they don’t exist only for cash flow, but for something bigger.
Bernard Arnault



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