110+ Bernard Arnault Quotes: Wisdom on Success, Creativity, and Innovation

Bernard Arnault is a renowned French businessman and the Chairman and CEO of LVMH Moët Hennessy – Louis Vuitton SE, the world's largest luxury goods company. With a career spanning several decades, he has established himself as a visionary leader in the fashion and luxury industry. His expertise lies in strategic brand management, mergers and acquisitions, and fostering creativity and innovation within his company. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Bernard Arnault on luxury, goods, fashion.

Top 10 Bernard Arnault Quotes

1. The most important word in our business is desire.
2. I am never bored.
3. It gives people working at the group a feeling that they don’t exist only for cash flow, but for something bigger.
4. Happiness for me is really leading the team and, if possible, leading them to the top.
5. We did not begin the creative process by talking about the bottom line.
6. You have to be just as mistrustful of straightforward rationality in business as you do of a uniquely gut approach.
7. We are completely open to selling our products on the internet because the internet is the future.
8. Mastering the paradox of star brands is very difficult and rare, fortunately.
9. The true artists that make LVMH a success… They want people to wear their dresses, or spray their perfume, or carry the luggage they have designed.
10. It just takes experience. Years of practice—trial and error—and you learn.

Bernard Arnault Short Quotes

• We have a lot of superstars… We have 50 brands.
• I am completely cleared.
• If one day we must sell something, first we want to turn it around and make it profitable.
• When you are on the management side, you still have to understand the artistic sensibility.
• It will take time, but is on the way.
• It is a bit of a paradox.
• Star brand is timeless, modern, fast-growing, and highly profitable.
• Our goal for the group is to remain a family company.
• Each brand very much runs itself, headed by its own artistic director.
• If you want to work with me, you have to work harder than the others and do well in school.

Bernard Arnault Quotes About Luxury

You think it’s expensive? It’s not Dior. — Bernard Arnault

Affordable luxury — these are two things that do not go together. — Bernard Arnault

Luxury is the combination of quality and creativity. — Bernard Arnault

Luxury for me is ‘How can you create desire.' — 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

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

The luxury industry is a key for Europe. — Bernard Arnault

We’re the only group that has the ability to manage different activities that cover the entire range of the luxury business. — Bernard Arnault

Luxury goods are the only area in which it is possible to make luxury margins. — Bernard Arnault

Louis Vuitton, the world's biggest luxury brand in terms of sales, is planning to dampen its expansion worldwide and focus on high-end products to preserve its exclusive image. — Bernard Arnault

Bernard Arnault Quotes About Goods

What feels good is choice. Having the freedom of choice. — Bernard Arnault

From time to time, the Vienna Philharmonic could play without a conductor because they are so good. — 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 good product can last forever. — Bernard Arnault

Bernard Arnault Quotes About Fashion

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

My daughter Delphine, she’s working at Dior. But she wears Celine. — 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

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

Bernard Arnault Quotes About Leadership

When I took over Louis Vuitton, everyone said, ‘It’s already so big – what more can you do?’ — Bernard Arnault

You need the right team of inspired managers. — Bernard Arnault

I am quite competitive. I want to stay ahead and increase our advance. — Bernard Arnault

Bernard Arnault Quotes About Success

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

My work is to help innovators and designers understand that the success of their creativity is in large part based on the success of their products. — Bernard Arnault

Sometimes you do not succeed. — Bernard Arnault

To be successful, you have to have a combination between modernity and timelessness. — Bernard Arnault

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

Mastering the paradox of star brands is very difficult and rare. — Bernard Arnault

I remember people telling me, it does not make sense to put together so many brands. — Bernard Arnault

Most artists don’t go around proclaiming, ‘I want to be a commercial success.’ They would actually hate to say that. — Bernard Arnault

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

We don’t like failures. — Bernard Arnault

Bernard Arnault Quotes About Growth

The goal of a start-up is not to stay a start-up. — Bernard Arnault

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

Star brands take time to grow. — Bernard Arnault

Today it’s clear that the world is driven by the growth of Asia and emerging countries. — Bernard Arnault

Growth is not, must not be a goal. The goal is desirability. People must desire the brand. — Bernard Arnault

Bernard Arnault Quotes About Designer

Our whole business is based on giving our artists and designers complete freedom to invent without limits. — Bernard Arnault

Designers are closer to artists than to engineers. — Bernard Arnault

It’s not enough to have a talented designer; the management must be inspired too. — Bernard Arnault

The responsibility of the manager in a company dependent on innovation… becomes picking the right creative people—the ones who want to see their designs on the street. — Bernard Arnault

Not long ago, I said to one of our designers, ‘Why don’t you take a trip to Japan and see what the teenage girls are wearing on the streets at night?… I did not say to the designer, Go and see what kinds of shoes they are wearing and copy them.’ — Bernard Arnault

It is an architectural innovation. — Bernard Arnault

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

I meet the designers very often, we discuss the products, they show me their ideas, we discuss the ad campaigns and every new invention that we can find for the future. — Bernard Arnault

Bernard Arnault Quotes About Quality

The problem in Europe is that we have a selective distribution system that allows the products to be sold in shops that follow a level of quality. And that’s very expensive to build… — 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

In order to be able to sell a product at a relatively high price, you have to offer the craftsmanship and quality. — Bernard Arnault

What made Louis Vuitton famous was the quality. — Bernard Arnault

The success of the group is made of the quality of the product. — Bernard Arnault

Bernard Arnault Quotes About Product

When something has to be done, do it! — 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

If you look over a creative person’s shoulder, he will stop doing great work. — Bernard Arnault

A new product is not creative—it is not important—if it does not shock when you first see it. — Bernard Arnault

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

The problem on the internet is when you have a fake seller who tries to use our brands to sell cheap products from very low salary countries. — Bernard Arnault

Our products are so in demand that we can do it. — Bernard Arnault

We are pretty confident on the new product flow. We have a lot of very interesting products, in perfume, in cosmetics, in Louis Vuitton we have the cherry bag that you see now with Uma Thurman. — Bernard Arnault

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

We have unique products. — Bernard Arnault

Bernard Arnault Quotes About Innovative

Can you say that in 20 years people would still use the iPhone? Maybe not. — Bernard Arnault

I don’t have alarm bells when it comes to creativity. — Bernard Arnault

Working in the context of ultra-famous brands like Dior and Vuitton, creative spirits are always going to feel reined in. It's important that they are free to develop ideas. — Bernard Arnault

Vuitton has always been a pioneer. — Bernard Arnault

It was a new concept—edgy, ahead of anyone’s thinking. It made everyone talk. — Bernard Arnault

Bernard Arnault Famous Quotes And Sayings

Money has never represented, in my view, an objective or even an indicator of any significance. I've been fascinated for a long time by artistic creation and by the search for perfection, of the highest level. — Bernard Arnault

It's a meeting between two personalities of different natures—the creative people and the organizers, water and fire. But out of the contradiction can come progress. — Bernard Arnault

If you think and act like a typical manager around creative people—with rules, policies, data on customer preferences, and so forth—you will quickly kill their talent. — Bernard Arnault

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

We know we must nurture them until they have some history. But even if it takes ten or 15 years for them to become stars, that has been an amazing investment, right? — Bernard Arnault

Even great talent could not launch a brand from zero. A brand must have a heritage; there are no shortcuts. — Bernard Arnault

You can’t charge a premium price for giving people what they expect… — Bernard Arnault

Our philosophy is quite simple, really. — Bernard Arnault

It is supposed to defend the interests of all shareholders. — Bernard Arnault

What I have fun with is trying to transform creativity into business reality all over the world. — Bernard Arnault

I am and will remain a tax resident in France and in this regard, I will fulfill my fiscal obligations. — Bernard Arnault

What we create is emblematic. It’s linked to Versailles, to Marie Antoinette. — Bernard Arnault

If you deeply appreciate and love what creative people do and how they think, then you can start to understand them. — Bernard Arnault

We are very fair with the consumer. — 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

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

Designers are closer to artists than to engineers. They’re not like normal managers, and you have to balance their creativity and rationality. John, Karl, Marc, they’re genius. You can’t put them into a rational environment. They’re sometimes late, and you have to accept that if you work with them, you have to be understanding with them. — 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

Formidable marques. But they do not have the mythic dimension that Dior or Vuitton have. — Bernard Arnault

You can tell time, dress beautifully or wear makeup produced by one of our brands anywhere in the world, regardless of your nationality, your beliefs, or your culture. — Bernard Arnault

I think there will be a high level of optimism when all this is finished and things return to normal. — Bernard Arnault

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. — Bernard Arnault

What I like is to feel emotion… and I agree even more when I see the sales results. — Bernard Arnault

One key element of management of a group like this is decentralization. — Bernard Arnault

We were the first to arrive in China. There were only bicycles when we opened here… — Bernard Arnault

In business, I think the most important thing is to position yourself for long-term and not be too impatient. — Bernard Arnault

I do not see how the manager of a publicly traded company is qualified to require a shareholder to sell his shares. — Bernard Arnault

I often say to my team we should behave as if we're still a start-up. — Bernard Arnault

I assure you, we do not lurk around every corner, questioning every creative decision. The most successful creative people… want to see their creations in the street. They don’t invent just to invent. — Bernard Arnault

People think of politicians having true power, but that’s less and less true. — Bernard Arnault

I think that to prepare for a career, it is important to have a goal. — Bernard Arnault

Try to avoid to invest when everything is too expensive. — Bernard Arnault

We are employing more than 500,000 people in Europe. — Bernard Arnault

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

I see myself as an ambassador of French heritage and French culture. — Bernard Arnault

I like to see the reaction of the people in the shops. I also like to see the competition. — Bernard Arnault

I read books about the Internet—I'm fascinated with it. — Bernard Arnault

I… believe that our arrival is probably the best way to preserve the French anchor and the family of this business. — Bernard Arnault

Our strategy is to trust the creators. — Bernard Arnault

What we do in our group is the opposite of the bad effects of globalization. — Bernard Arnault

With some businesses, you cannot avoid risk, and sometimes you do not succeed. — Bernard Arnault

We are fortunate to have such fine brands we do not sell. Diageo partners have expressed interest, but we are not sellers. — Bernard Arnault

Life Lessons by Bernard Arnault

1. Pursue your passion: Arnault's success stems from his genuine passion for the fashion and luxury industry. He teaches us that finding and following our true passion can lead to remarkable achievements in our chosen field.
2. Embrace calculated risks: Arnault has a reputation for taking calculated risks and making bold business moves. He reminds us that calculated risks can often yield great rewards, and it is important to step out of our comfort zones to achieve growth and success.
3. Foster a culture of excellence: Arnault places a strong emphasis on nurturing creativity, innovation, and excellence within his company. He teaches us the importance of fostering a culture that encourages and rewards excellence, which can lead to continuous growth and success.