Top 42 Quotes & Sayings by Bernard Arnault

In the luxury business, you have to build on heritage.

Mastering the paradox of star brands is very difficult and rare - fortunately.

Without hesitation, I'm voting Emmanuel Macron. Everything about the campaign of Marine Le Pen, despite its dressing of sovereignty, exudes fear and weakness.

You have to be just as mistrustful of straightforward rationality in business as you do of a uniquely gut approach.

It's true that I am not from the south and I have a certain reserve. I take time to get close to, and I don't immediately throw my arms round someone. But it is more a question of style.

I'm more concerned about Marc Jacobs than the U.S. president.

What made Louis Vuitton famous was the quality. We don't do marketing; we just create products which are exceptional in their design and craftsmanship.

Can you say that in 20 years people would still use the iPhone? Maybe not. Maybe we'd have a new product or something more innovative. What I can say today is that, in 20 years, I'm quite convinced that people will still drink Dom Perignon.

It's very important that when you have a designer like Marc Jacobs, who is a genius, you give him complete freedom.

Steve Jobs once asked me for some advice about retail, but I said, 'I am not sure at all we are in the same business.'

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.

We are really very lucky to have so many fantastic brands. But to grow them we should not be too much in a hurry. They are growing fast, but they have to grow accordingly to the market and to the capacity we have to deliver good products.

I am and will remain a tax resident in France and in this regard I will, like all French people, fulfill my fiscal obligations.

Oh, I was brought up in the north of France, and I had a very enjoyable childhood with my family working as entrepreneur.

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.

From time to time, the Vienna Philharmonic could play without a conductor because they are so good.

The person who I admire most in business is Warren Buffett. He is a long-term investor and has brilliant ideas, and he sticks to them.

I take time to get close to, and I don't immediately throw my arms round someone.

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.

I would never diminish the quality of Hermes. Hermes can be an even rarer and greater quality business, if they ever wanted to work with us.

I've always been pleased with the investments I've made with my friend Albert Frere and I regret not having followed him more, because I would have been a lot richer.

When I took over Louis Vuitton, everyone said, 'It's already so big - what more can you do?' And since then, we've multiplied that success tenfold.

Once we decided to do a tower in New York, it had to say something about our group, reflecting the mix of modernity and creativity in our organization. It's a symbol.

Money is just a consequence. I always say to my team, 'Don't worry too much about profitability. If you do your job well, the profitability will come.'

People think of politicians having true power, but that's less and less true. After all, they are often constrained or being edged into a corner by a whole series of contingencies.

In business, I think the most important thing is to position yourself for long-term and not be too impatient, which I am by nature, and I have to control myself.

What I love is to win. What I love is being number one.

I deal with creativity all the time. What I have fun with is trying to transform creativity into business reality all over the world. To do this, you have to be connected to innovators and designers but also make their ideas livable and concrete.

When you are on the management side, you still have to understand the artistic sensibility so that there is a dialogue with the creative side.

What we do in our group is the opposite of the bad effects of globalization. We produce in Italy and in France and we sell to China, when usually it's the opposite.

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

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

Affordable luxury - these are two words that don't go together.

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. And rather than detracting from the principal job, it reinforces it. I think of that money as venture capital. It's not a big investment.

A good product can last forever.

China has really succeeded because of its stability. So my feeling is, how they are going to maintain this fantastic stability in a very fast changing economic situation. I think this is a challenge we face, how the global region will evolve in stability with such a fast growth. If they succeed to do that, no doubt, in the next generation it will be the major area of the world, economically.

If you control your distribution, you control your image.

I think in business, you have to learn to be patient. Maybe I'm not very patient myself. But I think that I've learned the most is be able to wait for something and get it when it's the right time.

China is clearly going to be the number one economic power and it is already full of potential.. with lots of population and the buying power increasing by the day. .

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.

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.

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