The luxury Interview of...

Bureau d’Image: How would you define luxury?

Beatrice Schopflin: Extreme simplicity in the precision. To generate an emotion, a particular moment, a singularity.

BI: French luxury does it exist and what would be its characteristics?

BS: Yes, it does exist. It is particularly noticeable and powerful in the way the magic of the made in France is seen by the world. In France we have rich lands and a unique know-how, incarnated by the Compagnons du Devoir and the Meilleurs Ouvriers de France. Whether it is in gastronomy, cabinetmaking or high fashion, we have an incomparable wealth of transmission.

BI: What are the big evolutions in luxury hotels during the last decades?

BS: During a long time, we observed a type of immobility in luxury hotel, very conservative, with very strict rules. But since a couple of years, even if the standards still exist, it has many advantages of personality and spontaneity. She opens more easily to collaborators and other professions, creating more links.

BI: What type of leader are you? What principles guide your professional life?

BS: Engagement is essential. I am open to mistakes but it is essential to be surrounded by engaged people, who get things done. The manager has to be visible and creative to inspire his collaborators, to lead then toward a same objective and think outside the box.

BI: What was it first you demand from your team?

BS: The engagement, more and always, and a pronounced taste for subtlety and excellence.

BI: What type of mistakes inspire you to be more vigilant?

BS: The awkwardness of those how takes risks. We have the right to try and make mistakes. On the other hand, I have no indulgence for inertia and vulgarity.

BI: Has a General Manager, do we learn more every day about luxury and the multiples ways to incarnate?

BS: It is essential because there is no luxury hotel without any consistency. However, to hold and digest the codes and standards of the different processes, it is necessary to continuously train in service excellence. Once it is acquired, it is then that a real spontaneity can be released, which is essential for creating relationships with clients.

BI: What advice would you give to young professionals?

BS: I would like to address myself to women by telling them that it is a profession that can make you very happy and you should not be worried about the balance between personal life and professional life. You have to be bold, enthusiastic and curious.

BI: What do you recommend for men: neat beard or close shave?

BS: About grooming, I don’t want maintain the closed codes, not appropriate with time evolving generation. To be elegant, you need to love and be at ease with your body. A man can be very elegant with a neat beard.

BI: For women: for or against red nail polish?

BS: For, as far as it is well maintained on short nails.

BI: If luxury hotel was a color, what would it be?

BS: Black. The color of elegance, bright, without false note. It is Yves Saint-Laurent smoking, Pierre Soulages painting…

BI: An animal?

BS: A feline, the cat in particular, it incarnates the refinement, the agility, the independence.

BI: An adjective?

BS: Talented, for all the collaborators that stands out or those who win to be known, or collective because there is not individual success in hotels.

BI: An emotion?

BS: The wonder.

BI: A piece of art?

BS: Le Mobile of Calder, the balance of power and lightness.

BI: A motto?

BS: “Not daring is already losing”. Motto borrowed from Andree Putman.

BI: A virtue?

BS: Generosity emotional, the desire to please.

BI: A historical figure?

BS: Christopher Columbus, symbol of openness to cultures.