Louis Vuitton and the risk of falling into kitsch Granny

      PARIS - increasing sales and maintaining the pace. That is the challenge for today is probably the first global luxury brand - Louis Vuitton.

And this task, it is Jordi Constans, former managing food company Danone, which the new leader of the largest subsidiary of the renowned French LVMH - is luxury goods conglomerate (Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy).

First, Louis Vuitton, to get rid of their current image - annoyingly ubiquitous point slightly sticky. Flooded millions of brown bags decorated with the famous brand LV Monogram markets around the world, always so commonplace that the combination of a Google search for "Vuitton" and "cheesy" is [French for "obsolete"] 390,000 results. A French commentator said Internet rejection absolute form of this brand "counterfeit" as "old bags uptown Paris."

A recent survey of consumers in China - repeatedly cited by competitors Vuitton, even if it was done on a small sample of the population - represents Vuitton brand as "lost in mass production." Despite fortune spent on advertising to consumers more and more remote regions (the latter Kazakhstan) to ask a question, to win the world has had enough Vuitton?

The decision, announced over a year ago, in partnership with a specialist in big box retail - not familiar with the world of luxury - at the time seemed like a strange move, probably to strengthen the obsession with business marketing.

Luxury has its own laws, which the former Danone executive used to. "Fine Objects", it seems, must have a way to find the commercial area to escape, explains Bruno Remaury, PhD in Social Sciences and author of Deluxe: Trial Of The swagger of the production. "Once the object - because of the way it is produced industrially - is treated as an element of mass production, we must look elsewhere and find a form of prestige, they leave their industrial status This is essential luxury items.."

Serge Carreira, a professor at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, said the challenge is "to reconcile the company is developing very fast - less than 30 years - and the world of luxury, a world usually associated with the concept of authenticity, rarity, creativity and innovation. "

Breathe new life into a traditional brand

Louis Vuitton has done its best to gradually diversify into new markets - such as jewelry and watch manufacturing. But Carreira said "genius" Yves Carcelle society leaders and Bernard Arnault was, "Louis Vuitton fashion, where Marc Jacobs introduce freshness, creativity, color, modernity."

Can this new life to a "brand basically with traditional rules of the old school," said Carreira and Yves Carcelle, "the wide dissemination of the Monogram canvas face signed" with finding "new areas of development, including collection of premium leather (leather bags rare for a maximum of € 7,000 sold) and a service that allows customers to customize their pockets. "

Like any luxury brand Louis Vuitton has also begun to brighten the entry into the "artistic salvation", working with Takashi Murakami, Richard Prince, and Yayoi Kusama, for example, in an effort to its collections and give the brand a status symbol.

After the likes of Cartier, Prada, Hermes, the most lucrative branch of LVMH will also open its own contemporary art founded in 2014.

In the past 20 years was the motto of the company to go upscale by controlling everything from tanning shops. The number of new openings has slowed recently as the group now prefer the renovation of existing stores (more than 460 in the world). In China, where Louis Vuitton is available since 1992, the brand has chosen to take a break - as if the goal was not to reach more customers, but to ensure that the wealthiest are taken in charge.