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Source | The Wall Street Journal [magazine.wsj.com] | By Elva Ramirez
Excerpts from the article. To read it in it's entirity, go here:http://magazine.wsj.com/features/the-big-interview/being-arnault
Excerpts from the article. To read it in it's entirity, go here:http://magazine.wsj.com/features/the-big-interview/being-arnault
Being Bernard Arnault
On the day the house of Dior is presenting its pre-collection of women’s clothing and accessories for the fall 2009 season in Paris, Bernard Arnault, France’s richest man and arguably the most influential tastemaker in the world of luxury, is—in what his wife describes as a recurring phenomenon—“obsessing.”
“I just don’t like it. I don’t like it at all,” Arnault mutters as he examines a red-rimmed cotton canvas bag. The shelves of Dior’s sunlit showroom are neatly stacked with dozens of purses, totes and clutches in leather, shearling and python. To one side sit $1,900 serpent-shaped crystal-encrusted sandals with 6-inch-heels and shiny patent-leather ballerinas. Yet Arnault is fixated on this one $750 tote. He tugs disapprovingly on a round plastic pendant on the bag’s handle. “Can this be taken off?” he asks the cluster of Dior executives standing behind him. He takes the bag off its perch and continues: “The black and gray versions of the bag are already bordering on the commercial, but the red goes too far…it’s just not Dior.”
As chairman and majority owner of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA, which includes high-end brands Louis Vuitton, Givenchy, Tag Heuer watches, Donna Karan, Fendi and Moët & Chandon champagne, and of Dior and other companies, Bernard Arnault is required on a daily basis to balance the business needs of his sprawling empire with the exquisite good taste those brands must convey. What Arnault thinks matters globally. His is a $22 billion company in a $200 billion business. “They say God is in the detail,” says Sidney Toledano, CEO of Dior and a longtime Arnault buddy. “Here, the boss is in the detail.”
One of Arnault’s greatest strengths in creating some of the world’s biggest brands has been to hire raw design talents like Galliano at Dior, Alexander McQueen at Givenchy and Marc Jacobs at Louis Vuitton. (He also tapped Karl Lagerfeld to run Fendi and, most recently, he chose ex-Chloé design chief Phoebe Philo to revive Celine.) He then gives them enough space to express their creative potential even if—as with Dior—the results can be a roller coaster of successes and failures.
“He’s remarkably patient. He’s prepared to take his time to make decisions,” says Anna Wintour, editor in chief of Vogue. “Bernard has a very strong understanding of what the designers do. If he’s concerned about something, he’ll speak up, but he’ll never tell them, ‘Do this’ or ‘Do that.’ ” Says Jacobs: “I’m a loud-mouthed New Yorker, and I don’t fall into French formality. I’m very straightforward and people were shocked in the beginning. But look, I always say if we do a good job and we’re successful, he’s happy. If we don’t, he’s not. This isn’t a popularity contest.”
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