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Hermès History & Story

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Almost two centuries ago, a royal coronation might be delayed until the arrival of its exquisitely stitched Hermès carriage fittings, just as today even the richest women must wait for an exquisitely stitched Hermès Birkin bag.... See more » Almost two centuries ago, a royal coronation might be delayed until the arrival of its exquisitely stitched Hermès carriage fittings, just as today even the richest women must wait for an exquisitely stitched Hermès Birkin bag. With the family-run French company passing to a sixth generation, the author chronicles its rise to global pre-eminence, where a modern aesthetic meets the humble tools—awls, mallets, needles, knives, and stones—of unsurpassed tradition. by Laura Jacobs September 2007 ‘The world is divided into two: those who know how to use tools, and those who do not." "We are an industrial company with 12 divisions, which designs, makes, and retails its products. We aren't a holding company." For 28 years, from 1978 to 2006, the most quotable voice in retail—pragmatic, poetic—came from Jean-Louis Dumas, the head of a company that in every other way speaks with its hands. It is an old company with a Protestant spine and a Parisian perfectionism, one of the oldest family-owned-and-controlled companies in France. Its name alone prompts sighs of desire among those in the know, and those in the know run the gamut from French housewife to fashionista to queen (both kinds), from social climber to Olympic equestrian to C.E.O. The name itself is a sigh, a flight, and its proper pronunciation must often be taught. "Air-mez"—as in the messenger god with winged sandals. Mischievous, witty, ingenious Hermès. "We don't have a policy of image, we have a policy of product." Dumas, fifth generation of the Hermès family, was eminently quotable because he expressed clear concepts that made sense in any language. Though Hermès is grouped with other luxury brands, it hovers ineffably higher, apart, and not only because it is more costly. Dumas himself pooh-poohed the term "luxury," disliking its arrogance, its hint of decadence. He preferred the word "refinement," and intrinsic to that refinement is what Hermès won't do. It does not boast, does not use celebrities in advertising, does not license its name, does not let imperfect work leave the atelier (imperfect work is destroyed), does not get its head turned by trends. What it does do—Dumas's "policy of product"—is create necessary objects made from the most beautiful materials on earth, each so intelligently designed and deeply well made it transcends fashion (which is good because the pieces last for generations). When Diane Johnson, in her best-seller of 1997, Le Divorce, describes a gift box from Hermès "set alluringly on the desk, like a cake on an altar," she catches that special blend of the senses and the soul inherent in an object from Hermès. "Time is our greatest weapon." Inside that gift box is an Hermès handbag, a Kelly, the company classic renamed in 1956 for the actress Grace Kelly, who used one to shield her pregnancy from a paparazzo's lens. In Johnson's novel the Kelly is symbolic of an Old World transaction—the taking of a mistress. But under Dumas's brilliant leadership, Hermès became a brave-new-world company, growing global in a sustained, savvy, relatively debt-free ascent that was prepared for in the 80s, rocketed in the 90s, and continued to climb after 2000 even as other luxury brands slipped. Young women in Japan, China, and Russia now buy their own Kellys. Paris is no longer the only destination for those who want incomparable leather goods, scarves, ties, and iconic jewelry and watches—Hermès now has 283 stores worldwide, 4 of them flagships. Dumas set the tone for Hermès as a fierce competitor that competes only with itself and keeps winning. Upon his retirement, in March of last year, he handed the reins to members of the family's sixth generation, who must now find their own relationship with time. It began with Thierry Hermès, the sixth child of an innkeeper. He was born a French citizen in the German town of Krefeld, land that in 1801 was part of Napoleon's empire. Having lost all of his family to disease and war, Hermès went to Paris an orphan, proved gifted in leatherwork, and opened a shop in 1837, the same year Charles Lewis Tiffany opened See less »

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birkin, france, french, frenchmpurse, hand, handbag, handbags, handmade, hermes, herne, kelly, leather, made, paris, purse

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Hermès History & Story

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