Leathergoods: ‘like changing a stone into a diamond’
09/05/2018
Hermès chief executive, Axel Dumas, has told the Financial Times that the company is working towards training 250 new leather craftspeople in France each year to cope with increased production demands. He said its preference is for “semi-rural” locations because it helps alleviate rural unemployment, but that it’s also important choose places that have “a culture of craftsmanship”, if not direct experience of leather.
New recruits spend up to 16 months at facilities such as the école Boudard, learning how to make an Hermès bag from start to finish. Mr Dumas told the newspaper than essential part of the training programme is to have skilled craftspeople stop making bags to pass their know-how on to others. He said the company has worked out that it is possible to offer training to 250 without compromising on existing production schedules.
Recent graduate of the system, Abigail Lewis, told the FT that her experience had been to go from not knowing anything to being able to make handbags that high-end consumers will buy for thousands of euro. “It’s like changing a stone into a diamond,” she said.
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