On one occasion a reporter asked Henry Racamier if his shops ever thought of having a sale. "A sale" Mr. Racamier examined the word as though an impropriety had been uttered. "No," he said finally. On the contrary, his policy was to make the firm’s goods ever more alluring by increasing prices, not reducing them. Mr. Racamier had taken over the leather goods firm of Louis Vuitton in 1977 when its business was slipping. Fewer and fewer people wanted leather luggage. The new generation of travelers was buying lightweight luggage that did not need the assistance of porter; best give leather back to the cows. Mr. Racamier looked beyond Vuitton’s traditional European market to Asia. In the 1970s, the "tiger" economies were producing a middle class gaining a taste for luxuries. A Vuitton steamer trunk might seem in Paris to belong to a bygone age, as indeed it did, but to a newly rich family in Seoul or Taipei it carried cachet. Did you know that a trunk like this was made for the pasha of Egypt Fancy that. How much did you say Trunks were just a taster of the catalogue of wares rapidly being expanded by Mr. Racamier: handbags, purses, belts, wallets. In 1977, Vuitton had two shops, one in Paris, the other in Nice. By 1990, Mr. Racamier had built the business into more than 130 Vuitton shops worldwide, set up new factories to keep them supplied, and trained members of staff to be as polite and knowledgeable as those in Paris. These Vuitton shops regularly sold more than twice than a jewelry shop in a prosperous street. Mr. Racamier seemed to have turned leather into gold. When he took over Vuitton, Mr. Racamier was 65 and thinking of retiring. He had spent his adult life in the steel industry, much of it building up a steel trading company called Stinox. It had prospered and Mr. Racamier was comfortably off. He was married to Odile Vuitton, the great- grand-daughter of Louis Vuitton, who had started out as clothes-packer for Empress Eugenie, wife of Napoleon Ⅲ, founding his own luggage business in 1854. The business had stayed in the family, eventually passing to Odile’s father, who had run it until his death in 1970. Mr. Racamier was at first reluctant to take over the family firm. He was planning other diversions, mainly music. But he was prevailed on by his mother-in-law to "take a look at the books; see what can be done". The books, Mr. Racamier recalled, "looked very doggy". The firm’s assets included a factory of antique character with a staff to match. Its main asset, Mr. Racamier decided, was its name. In its heyday the firm had been an innovator. The famous would get Vuitton to make luggage personal to their needs. Douglas Fairbanks, an early Hollywood star, wanted a special compartment for his toiletries; Leopold Stokowski’ s trunk opened into a desk with a drawer for musical scores; an Indian maharajah’ s trunk had a container to hold water to make tea. Louis Vuitton and his successor had catered for people to whom money was merely a means of getting the best. Mr. Racamier sought to satisfy the needs of his new Asian customers in the same joyous spirit. He was among the first businessmen in the expansive 1980s to recognize the value of the logo. that however well made the article; it was the initials LV created its extra value. But he differed from other manufactures who, he said, flaunted their name. The logo had to be discreet, creating a feeling of understated quality. In 1987, Mr. Racamier formed an alliance with another family firm, Moet Hennessay. The resulting group was known as LVMH. In 1988, he brought into the group an investor called Bernard Arnault, aged 39. Mr. Racamier was then 76 and saw Mr. Arnault as a supporter in any possible disputes with Moet Hennessy. They played piano together. Both like Chopin. However, Mr. Arnault’s arrival was the start of a battle for control of LVMH. It turned out that Mr. Racamier was dismissed from the board. Mr. Arnault became head of LVMH. Both he and the company have prospered, and according to some accounts, Mr. Arnault has become France’s richest man. As for Henry Racamier, he dabbled in a number of other business enterprise, but none came too much. He still found pleasure in music. Playing solo, reckoned, had its advantages. What tone does the author use when he wrote about the, relationship between Mr. Racamier and Mr. Arnault