TRIBUTES have been paid to the businessman credited with turning Louis Vuitton into the world's biggest luxury brand after he lost his battle against cancer.
.
Yves Carcelle, who was 66 and an energetic, self-made man who headed Louis Vuitton for more than two decades until 2012, died on Sunday. "A tireless traveller, Yves was a pioneer," said Bernard Arnault, chief executive and founder of parent company LVMH.
"Always curious, passionate and in motion, he was one of the most inspiring leaders of men and women whom I have ever had the privilege of knowing."
Louis Vuitton is the biggest profit and cash generator for LVMH, the world's leading luxury group which owns more than 60 brands including fashion labels Christian Dior, Celine and Fendi, jeweller Bulgari and cognac maker Hennessy.
Carcelle, a charismatic manager who inspired his teams to work as much as he did, including at weekends, was regarded as the smooth implementer of Arnault's global ambitions for Louis Vuitton.
"He led the industry into retail away from the wholesale model and played a key role in the development of the global luxury goods industry," said Julian Easthope, a luxury goods analyst at Barclays.
Louis Vuitton was an industry trailblazer, one of the first major luxury brands to only sell its goods in directly operated shops and never offer discounts.
During his tenure, Carcelle quadrupled Louis Vuitton's store network to just under 470, many of them in emerging markets such as China. He grew the brand's revenue from an estimated €500 million in 1990 to more than €7bn (£5.5bn) and oversaw its diversification into watches, jewellery and into ready-to-wear under American designer Marc Jacobs.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article