Over the past few days, social media has been buzzing about a 60 Minutes TV broadcast featuring Pierre-Alexis Dumas, Hermès’ artistic director. I grabbed some popcorn to watch the hour-long interview but was a bit disappointed to find out the episode lasted barely 14 minutes.
– Have you ever made a decision based on cost, budget? Like, this will be less expensive if we do it this way.
– I can’t work like that, – Dumas rolled his eyes and shook his head side to side for emphasis. – I’ve always heard that Hermès is very costly. It’s not expensive, – he raised an eyebrow and paused, – it’s costly, – he concluded definitively.
– What’s the difference? – the interviewer asked, slightly taken aback.
– The cost is the actual price of making objects properly, – he said gesturing as if placing an invisible Birkin bag on table. – With the required level of attention so that you have an object of quality. Expensive is a product that doesn’t deliver what it’s supposed to, yet you’ve paid a large amount of money for it. And then it betrays you, – he nodded firmly. – That’s expensive.
There’s a famous story about the iconic orange boxes, which I mentioned a while ago. The color that no one wanted—left over due to post-war shortages—has now become the signature of every unboxing of a coveted bag. Retold by Pierre-Alexis Dumas, the story sounds much more artistic—his expressive gestures and narrative style add flair to the tale. This style of storytelling and perception feels very close to my own.
And, of course, the story of the Birkin bag. He recounts it once again—not dryly or factually, but in his characteristic way that makes you feel as though he personally witnessed the dialogue that gave rise to perhaps the most desired bag of our time.
– Somebody wants the bag. How do you get the bag?
– Well, – he raised an eyebrow again, – you have to walk into the store… – he sighed deeply, as if understanding the pain of everyone on the waiting list, – and you have to be patient.
When asked about the incredible difficulties of purchasing the bag, he rolled his eyes upward:
– It makes me smile. This is a diabolical marketing idea that could only come from people obsessed with marketing. But we don’t have a marketing department, – he said, his forehead frozen in incredulous wrinkles.
Speaking about "the speed as destructuring value of the 21st century", he passionately noted:
– We are about craft, – rejecting any comparisons to industrial production.
Apart from my personal perception—I love people passionate about their activities—it’s precisely this unwavering passion I saw when Pierre-Alexis demonstrated the saddle stitch technique himself, rather than passively observing an atelier master. However, such words about the absence of any marketing do make me smile.
Just yesterday, I read an article in the Financial Times about London’s luxury real estate market and the mass exodus of non-dom wealthy individuals due to new tax rules enacted in October. In the aptly titled piece “Super-prime London’s cut-price property deals”, there’s a telling excerpt:
...Annabel is in her early thirties and recently bought her first home. Over the course of 2023, she felt her bargaining position strengthen as the number of suitable properties grew and their prices fell. ‘The longer we were [looking], the more [homes] seemed to come on the market; later in the year [asking] prices made more sense. I was in no rush, and I felt more and more powerful,’ says Annabel, who declined to give her real name...
Many luxury brands today resemble sellers of London prime property.
Hermès, however, is Annabel. The powerful one.