Hermès has long occupied a special place in the eyes of luxury researchers as one of the most elite brands to have bags and scarves. Its popularity has not been a secret – in the last decade, sales have broken out by 226%, which has brought the brand to new heights.
With this kind of boom, especially in the midst of a recent slowdown in the luxury industry, it is difficult to consider Hermès as a single old dusty company that has existed for almost two centuries.
Instead, he is better considered a bit of a startup, said Pierre-Alexis Dumas, artistic director of the French company and heir Hermès of sixth generation.
“I always like to say that Hermès is an old lady with start -up problems because we grew up so quickly in such a small period,” said Dumas during a new CBS 60 minutes episode Released in December. “How can you grow so quickly without changing what makes you strong?”
There are several ways of which Hermès does things differently from his competitors, such as the priority for quality compared to quantity. That’s why,Dumas said, even if the Hermès bags are delivered with a price of more than $ 10,000, this is for a justifiable reason.
“Speed is the 20th century structuring value,” he said.
“We have passed from horses to internet. Are we going to be so obsessed with speed and immediate satisfaction?
The Hermès formula is different from that of its rivals, but it worked. Its 2014 sales were 4.1 billion euros and by 2023, these figures had increased to 13.4 billion euros. The company’s shares have increased by 284% in the past five years.
Hermès’ journey was so spectacular that it caused millionaires among the parents far from the founding family. Dumas has been with the French Baggin for almost two decades, presiding over the recent wave of growth.
Few others have been able to reproduce Hermès’ success in maintaining a loyal clientele among the rich while remaining relatively discreet. For example, the company has no marketing service. However, the demand for emblematic Hermès bags has always exceeded the supply – a phenomenon that has involuntarily added to the attraction of French society.
Scale of new peaks: Hermès style
A single craftsman works on a bag, which can take at least five years of training and several hours TO DO. This automatically creates rarity because Hermès produces fewer bags than mass produced, which, in turn, increases prices.
Some criticisms have raised problems concerning the baguenor creating artificial rarity. But Dumas rejects this idea.
“It makes me smile that it is an idea of evil marketing. It can only come out of people obsessed with marketing,” he said. “Whatever we have, we put on the shelf, and it’s okay.”
The company sought at form More craftsmen to help quench an apparently insatiable thirst for Hermès bags.
Another criticism of the Hermès model is the way buyers cannot simply enter a store and expect to buy a birkin. They must make their way with a purchasing story of other Hermès items before they can see their most sought -after bags worth thousands of dollars.
Some buyers have recently joined together to continue Hermès for having deliberately made it difficult to buy his high -level products, even if people are ready to pay money for them.
So far, this case has not been successful to consumers, as an American judge said during an audience last year that “Hermès can manage his business as she wishes. If he chooses to make five bags of Birkin per year and to charge a million [for] They can do it.
Despite Hermès’ methodical approach to the production of bags, the sixth generation of the founding family also sought to learn errors from their ancestors.
“I do not want to be like my predecessors in the family, that is to say to die in office,” said Axel Dumas, the executive president of Hermès, to the Financial time In September, when he talks about succession planning. “The risk fell in love with what we did and not being able to change. At one point, you need fresh eyes.”
Hermès representatives did not immediately return FortuneComment request.
A version of this story originally published on Fortune.com December 17, 2024.
This story was initially presented on Fortune.com
