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Hermes: From Harnesses to Handbags
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19631 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
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10 / 1991 |
2,433 Words |
| Author
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Curtis Cate
Historian and biographer Curtis Cate was greatly aided in the
preparation of this article by Liane Villemont and Jacques
Deschamps of l'Institut national de l'audiovisuel. |
Hermes is not a rags-to-riches story, if only because the founder was no pauper and because it took the patience, stubborn perfectionism, business flair, and inventiveness of five successive generations to make Hermes the prestigious house that it has become. So spectacular is the growth of this luxury goods firm that one can almost speak of an economic miracle. Hermes has moved from a moderately prosperous family enterprise with an annual turnover of about $100 million in 1983 to an international concern with a total turnover of around $500 million in 1989 (a fivefold increase in half a dozen years). This "miracle" has been made possible by a shrewd instinct for generating consumer demand for fancy artifacts in an age that, despite ups and downs in business cycles, has been one of steadily increasing affluence.
Americans no longer need to go abroad to find Hermes; it has boutiques in a dozen U.S. cities, from Boston and Beverly Hills to Dallas and Chicago. There one will find leopard-decorated bathrobes for $300, brass-buckled belts from a minimum of $200 to a high of $1,000 (crocodile hide), gaily flowered sunhats pegged at $370, and red turtleneck jerseys at $740, to say nothing of wonderfully light suitcases made of leather and carbon fiber at discreetly tagged prices that are so astronomically high that one must look at them twice to decipher them.
Writing in a September 1986 issue of Forbes, Phyllis Berman brashly predicted that the bonanza could not last, that it would be impossible to "attract customers of the younger set" with $650 silk sweatshirts and mink jogging suits that "set you back $12,500." The problem, she asserted, "is that an affluent society like ours can't produce many customers for $1,700 handbags." Hermes, if it was to continue expanding, would have to lower its pretentious sights, stop catering so slavishly to the well-heeled few (mostly aged forty-five or older), and start churning out $350 leather bags and even "mass producing satchels retailing for a mere $150."
Those words fell on deaf ears. Not only has Hermes, under its present chairman, Jean-Louis Dumas, shown no inclination to follow in the footsteps of Ford or Pierre Cardin, it has continued to thrive. Last year, though there was a 4 percent decline in total sales from the peak of 1989 (due to the worldwide recession and the Gulf crisis), more than one million silk ties, priced around $80 were sold in some 250 Hermes boutiques, in department stores, or in duty-free shops all over the globe.
Last year, the pre-Christmas scramble for their
...
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