‘You need to adjust to Hermès time,’ says Priscila Alexandre, the house’s creative director of leather goods, by way of explaining that once through the doors of Hermès HQ, you’re in a kind of ultra-luxurious alternate reality. It should sit alongside GMT and EST as an international time zone; a world where a slowly, slowly approach is the only way to achieve the particular level of excellence demanded to make the most sought-after bags on Earth. ‘You need to get your head around it,’ says Alexandre, guiding me through a colossal central atrium where light streams through. ‘Because what works at other houses does not work at Hermès.’
The Hermès accessories atelier is the holy grail of handbag production. Such is the brand’s status as a French national treasure that the receptionist in my Paris hotel all but crosses herself when she learns I’m spending the day watching Birkin, Kelly and Constance bags come into being. Designed for the late doyenne of Left Bank cool, Jane Birkin, in 1984, the Birkin is now more famous than its inspiration. A whole episode of Sex and the City was devoted to the near impossibility of buying one, even if you have the necessary £20,000 to hand.
Waiting lists for the bag are the stuff of luxury lore – online chatter warns of six-year waits. According to Hermès, however, it’s all a myth and one need only be patient and develop a relationship with your friendly local Hermès store. But whatever the reality of the grapple to get one, it made headlines this year: two covetous Californians are suing Hermès for what they claim is the brand’s refusal to sell Birkins to them.
So seeing this French grande dame, in all her constituent parts, waiting to be assembled feels somewhat indecent, like catching Marie Antoinette without her wig on. A gentleman feels as though he should look away. In her rawest state, the Birkin is a collection of leather panels, strips, metal hardware and thread, awaiting the sorcery that will transform her into something worth the wait.
In a working method that’s entirely at odds with the standard-practice production-line approach at most houses, Hermès bags are created by one maker from start to finish. That bright, sunlit atrium is a design consideration; special adjustable blinds flood the workrooms with light. Each Crittall Windows panel that makes up the interior of the atrium is 90cm square, designed to perfectly mirror the dimensions of an Hermès silk scarf. This monolithic building in the Pantin suburbs north of Paris has been the site of Hermès accessories production since 1992 (previously it was done at the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré store). But to keep them connected, a live video link screens what is happening in the flagship boutique in real time to the artisans creating what will eventually fill those shelves.
Within the workrooms, bags are delivered to an artisan’s stations in ‘flat-pack’ form, with each component ready for assembly. Training takes a minimum of two years, during which apprentices work alongside master craftspeople. By the time they graduate they have to be able to make the most complicated and revered bags – the Birkin and Kelly – from start to finish.
It’s a method that ensures each artisan – there are around 30 here – takes complete ownership of a bag and applies their own individual ‘handwriting’ in the smooth line of a shaven strip, or particular sheen on polished leather. The workroom manager can tell just by looking who worked on which bag, and workstations are cluttered with family photographs and plants. Blank faces greet me when I ask how long a Birkin takes to make. ‘It’s not measured that way,’ one artisan tells me. There’s no quota of work that needs to be completed each day, and no supervisor clocking numbers.
The process of creating, whether a jaunty little Kelly in absinthe green or a sporty Berline in ash grey, is an art form. Even just smoothing the join after one piece of leather has been glued to another involves sanding away any microscopic globules of glue while keeping the surface smooth and tactile. Another particularly tricky element is achieving the rounded voluminousness of the Constance. This end result is created when a craftsperson touches the leather with searing hot tongs to shrink certain parts, allowing a more puffed-up effect elsewhere. It’s then polished with a glass stone pad to give the bag its special gleam.
Even the thread that sews up the bag is the subject of intense scrutiny; it is threaded through the needle three times to strengthen it, and the same strand is used throughout. If it breaks, the bag has to be taken apart and the process starts again. Each puncture is also meticulously planned out – toothed devices with different widths between the spikes determine the size and spacing of each stitch.
While some designs are more fantastical than others – there’s a rare Birkin Faubourg with a rendering of the Saint-Honoré storefront with three-dimensional awnings – it’s the simple bags that require the most skill. ‘It takes a great deal of work to make it look so clean, because the inside has to be as beautifully crafted as the outside,’ says Alexandre. ‘The simpler it looks, the more complicated it is within.’
The shelf life of an Hermès bag, she goes on to explain, is integral in the making process. ‘There’s a saying from the late Jean-Louis Dumas, the former CEO who was a descendent of the house’s founder, Thierry Hermès. He said, “A luxury object is one that can be repaired.”’ With her tousled chestnut hair, jangle of Hermès bangles and expertly cut jeans, she could have stepped from a Serge Gainsbourg video, but having joined the house in 2020, she’s far from insouciant.
‘Alongside our excellence and quality, longevity is absolutely key,’ she says. ‘If something happens to the handle, how do we repair it with minimum impact on the bag? You create in a different way.’
The design process is unique to Hermès, in that Alexandre has a mini atelier adjacent to her top-floor office, to work on ideas for new bags with the artisans as they spring into her mind. ‘This sort of proximity is very organic, we can have conversations easily about what will work and what won’t at an early stage. It’s our little ideas laboratory,’ she says.
There is, of course, a weight of responsibility to designing these most desirable handbags. ‘In the beginning, it was a little intimidating,’ admits Alexandre. ‘But you have to remember how lucky we are here,’ she adds, gesturing to the ateliers beyond. ‘It all starts with them: the artisans, the craft, the skill and the heritage. And then you can create something new.’
For all the reverence for the holy Hermès trinity – the Birkin, Kelly and Constance – Alexandre’s job is to come up with contemporary renderings that work for today rather than worship past glories. ‘I’m always thinking of the personality behind the bag, who is the person who’ll use this?’, she says, gesturing to an Arcon bag into which you can casually slide your hand like a pocket. It is the life that you live with your bag that fascinates her: ‘The tactility, the ergometry, the reason and functionality, how it sits against your body.’ A Kelly may rest on its own special stool at Maxim’s, but its sportier brother – the Allback backpack – might have to rough it slung across someone’s shoulder for a cycle ride.
‘You need to respond to the world that we live in today; Hermès has always done that,’ says Alexandre. ‘At first it was with saddlery and then when cars arrived, it was the creation of a bag to sit alongside. I’m always looking at how we live with our accessories now.’
The heritage may stretch back more than a century, but Hermès time is bang up to the minute.
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