Remember the old story of the lettuce at Harrods. If it costs 20p nobody will buy it, but if it is sold for £2 everybody wants it. So the idea that price is a problem in the luxury goods industry is a contradiction in terms.

Yet this did not stop the French king of luxury, Bernard Arnault, complaining at his LVMH group's annual shareholders meeting that the euro had reached "incomprehensible" levels against the dollar and the yen.