Tour of Hermès workshop inspires

THE Hermès workshop is a place full of daylight and dedication.

WISH 6 March 2015

IT takes three years to train to be a leather craftsman in France. Then, if you’re lucky enough to get a job in the leather workshops at Hermès — the ne plus ultra of French leather goods — it’s another year of in-house training to be able to make the brand’s iconic, and highly sought after, bags and accessories.

Once upon a time — until 1992, in fact — Hermès made every one of its bags in the atelier above its flagship store on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in the centre of Paris. However, as the luxury goods industry became global, Hermès outgrew the tiny workshop, which now produces only saddles and equestrian accessories.

Today Hermès has about 350 stores around the world and the appetite for its leather goods is fed via a purpose-built production workshop in the city’s northeastern suburb of Pantin that employs about 250 craftsmen and women. Although the building is essentially a factory, that term does not give you a sense of what this workplace is like. The building, which opened in 1992, was designed by Rena Dumas — who has also designed the interiors of more than 150 Hermès stores — with the wellbeing of the craftsmen always in mind. The building is like a crystal palace and is flooded with light from floor-to-ceiling windows on the exterior as well as through a central glass atrium. Only the brand’s leather goods are made here — in all there’s 2500 craftsmen and women throughout France — and a rare tour behind the scenes is enough to make you want to change careers and become a leather craftsman.

In their first year with Hermès , new employees will learn the production techniques of four of the company’s key bag designs: the Kelly bag in “hard” and “soft” versions, the Birkin and the Constance bag. The know-how gained in making these four bags will be sufficient to make all the other bags in the company’s range. When the cut and prepared leather arrives (the only leather work that is not done here) the head of the workshop dispatches different bags to different people based on their skill level. Although there are those who specialise in certain styles of bag, all craftsmen are progressively given more responsibilities to build up their skill base and to ensure the ongoing capabilities of the company.

There’s a meticulousness to even the smallest elements of production. Linen thread is coated with beeswax to make it easier to stitch thick pieces of leather together, and it is threaded on to the needle three times. The edges of leather pieces are dyed by hand, sanded back, and smoothed with a hot iron, and then the process is repeated again and again until the worker is sure the colour has penetrated deep enough into the material.

Each bag is made from beginning to end by a single craftsman (no one interferes with anyone else’s work). Each worker uses the set of tools given to them at the start of their employment, which they then add to over the years. On average a craftsman produces two items per week.

On the day WISH visited, however, there was a great deal of excitement among some of the workers as an item that had been worked on for 255 hours (roughly equivalent to two months of work) was about to leave the Pantin workshop for a store in Russia. The wardrobe-style trunk, weighing 68kg and finished in red leather, was the work of two craftsmen because of its size and weight. As a cloth covering was lifted off the trunk, one almost expected a round of applause. Then again these workers have been living with this trunk — and myriad other exquisitely made leather goods — for months, so the drama almost went unnoticed. But then a craftswoman looked up from her bench, smiled at one of the men who worked on the trunk and said: “It’s a masterpiece, I love it.”