AUTOMOTIVE
L’ART DU LUXE
We traveled to the haute couture capital to understand
France’ s answer to the luxury car market.
DS AUTOMOBILES
Written by Benjamin Dubois
France has long enjoyed a strong reputation for creating luxury What is luxury? This is a very personal question, is it exclusivity? The
brands which are the envy of the world. Dior, Chanel, Yves Saint latest technology? The heritage of a brand? Or simply how you feel
Laurent, Cartier, Givenchy the list goes on. But in the Automotive when you experience the craftsmanship that goes into creating a
industry, before 2015 you would have been hard-pressed to name luxury product. I believe luxury is an illusion.
a luxury vehicle manufacturer in France. Today, the answer is DS
Automobiles.
Without getting too deep, there is no universal rule book or guide to
adhere to.
Now, let’s get this out of the way nice and early, because I can hear
the collective question… “You mean Citroen?”. DS Automobiles
began in 2009 as a premium brand of Citroen, enjoying great
success. This was until in 2014 Yves Bonnefont, the then Director of
There are only versions of luxury created in the heads of the
consumer; it’s a deeply personal experience, and one that DS
Automobiles taps into with a product range that is hard to ignore.
Strategy, along with three colleagues busily worked on a plan to truly What better way to see the haute couture influence embedded in
allow the creative designs to flourish and show off the savoir-faire DS Automobiles cars than visiting the timeless city of Paris. This trip
they knew their team boasted, all with one aim in mind. To grow DS wasn’t going to be to simply stroll down the Champs-Élysées, we
Automobiles into one of the top 10 luxury brands in the world. were heading to round 8 in the Formula E calendar.
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The Art of Luxury
Issue 39 2019