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. 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 his doors in New York. Today the two companies have the most distinctive color signatures in retail—Hermès orange and Tiffany robin’s-egg blue—but there the similarity ends. Where Tiffany began in stationery and costume jewelry, Hermès specialized in the horse harnesses required by society traps, calèches, and carriages. The dynamics of animal power and grace, movement and travel, energy controlled and the outdoors enjoyed, are deep in the lifeline of Hermès. It was a business built on the strength of a stitch that can only be done by hand, the saddle stitch, which has two needles working two waxed linen threads in tensile opposition. It is a handsome, graphic stitch, and done properly it will never come loose.
A top 24 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré a statue, affectionately known as “l’artificier,” waves Hermès scarves.
The clients of Thierry Hermès were rich: the Parisian beau monde and European royalty, including the emperor Napoléon III and his empress, Eugénie. But Thierry’s true client—the wings on his sandals—was the horse, whose hauteur in this era was unrivaled. It was in equipage that the Hermès allure took form, born of a linear integrity, a tailored masculinity, its richness lying in the leather and in hardware honestly, elegantly designed. When Thierry’s son, Émile-Charles, succeeded him, the family business moved to 24 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, where it has been a limestone landmark—the home of Hermès—ever since. In that same year of 1880, saddlery was added, a custom business that required measurements from both horse and rider. Added as well in the 19th century, another Hermès institution: the wait. Because handstitched perfection cannot be rushed, royal coronations were sometimes delayed until Hermès fittings for the carriage and the guard had arrived. In this century, the waitlist for items such as the hot-and-heavy Birkin, a handbag created in 1984 for the actress Jane Birkin, can stretch to five years. One Birkin takes 18 to 25 hours to make, and the Paris workrooms produce only five or so each week; these supply Hermès stores worldwide.
Read the entire article: Vanity Fair article from Laura Jacobs
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