Letter #210: Pierre-Alexis Dumas (2019)
Artistic Director of Hermes | Hermes' master of dreams explains why dreams fuel creation
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Today’s letter is the transcript of Pierre-Alexis Dumas explaining why dreams fuel creation. He shares his memories and feelings towards The Faubourg, which was Hermes’ headquarters for many years, gives a tour of his office, memories of the Faubourg Saint-Honore, and why dreams fuel creation.
Pierre-Alexis Dumas is the Artistic Director of Hermes and a sixth-generation descendent of the founder, Thierry Hermes. He started his career in a factory managed by a branch of the Ratti family in Como, Italy, where silk had been spun since the 19th century. While there, he was introduced to aspects of engraving for printed textile, dyeing, and pattern design, particularly for women's fashion. Eight months later, he joined the Hermes Group at the family firm’s headquarters in Paris, where he immediately joined the creative committee for Saint Louis crystal and Puilforcat silver. A year later, he headed up the group’s operations in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China. Five years later, he transitioned to leading the group’s UK operations. After several years leading the UK operations, he returns to his creative roots, first becoming creative director of silks, and then creative director for all of Hermes.
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Transcript
24, Faubourg, Paris
It’s a beautiful building. It’s a building which doesn’t reflect the era it was built in. Built in 1924, finished in 1926. It doesn’t look like the avant-garde architecture of the twenties, it’s a stripped neo-classical façade, could be 19th century, yet it’s audacious in its dimensions. It’s kind of small and monumental. It looks like a small department store, it has a lot of elegance. It’s really like a beacon of light in the city. And success came straightaway for Emile Hermes when he built it.
In the first century, the 19th century, we were harness-makers and saddle-makers, and we entered the 20th century after World War I really, when my great-grandfather Emile Hermes built the Faubourg and decided to diversify from equestrian products to accessories for his clients. This was a big shift and a big innovation for this House.
The Faubourg was for many years the headquarters of Hermes, the origin of everything. When I was a child and a teenager, the workshops were above the store, the logistics department was in the basement. The whole building was like a beehive – it still is, by the way. And all of Hermes was there, all of Hermes was concentrated in this very little building in the heart of Paris.
So when you walk into the Faubourg today, you get this wonderful feeling of a presence. Of course, I am not rational when I say this, because I remember all the wonderful people who… lived there – who worked there, sorry. I almost say lived there, because my family actually lived in that building, in the previous building before the Faubourg was built above it. But when you enter that store, there’s the sense of a presence, it’s lively, it has that energy which you can’t create artificially.
And then if you’re lucky enough to go behind the scenes, you feel a place which is very exciting. It’s a building that had many transformations, but many places have not changed and are very moving.
Pierre-Alexis’ Office
This is my office. This is the place where I spend most of my time here at Hermes. I spend a lot of time going from one creative studio to another creative studio, because we have different creative teams depending on the collections we’re talking about – menswear, womenswear, leather bags, perfume, shoe collections, etc.
In each creative studio you have a different energy, a different stimulation, different inspirations, with books and boards and objects. So I would say here in my office, it is maybe the concentration of everything. So I need to come back here to immerse myself again into what I call the Hermes dream, the Hermes energy. And then I have to go back and forth from one studio to the next. So this is my island, this is where… I get my inspiration back.
I have a tendency to accumulate objects and images, so the walls of my office are covered with prints, paintings, photography, everywhere in my office I put a lot of objects. Some objects I found, some objects my father gave me, some objects I bought, some objects are prototypes.
Each object here is like a book, it has a history of its own. It reminds me of a specific moment, a significant moment in the life of Hermes and in my career at Hermes. They’re like companions. They remind me of the past without being nostalgic, and they help me. They motivate me to dream of the future.
I have a little… in French we say a maillot jaune. It’s a small figure in lead, and it shows… an athlete on a bicycle. He’s wearing the yellow jersey of the leader of the race. And it’s a small reminder of the position we have to keep at Hermes.
I also have some funny animals. One is actually a slug. It’s a slug in bronze that I found in a thrift shop. And I like the slug, it looks beautiful actually. Very stylised. But the slug is very persistent. It’s slow but it always reaches its goal.
And objects and images, for me, are wonderful stimulations of my ability to… again, look at the world with fresh eyes. I would say that in many ways my office is a big – in French we say cabinet de curiosites. Which means… it’s my own little museum that keeps my mind open and stimulated.
Among the funny objects I have in my office, I have a wonderful little… It looks like a clock, but it’s not a clock, that belong to my father. I tell you, my father was really a man of the future, because here he has what I call a ‘connected object’ before connectivity existed. In French it’s called a podometre, it’s called a pedometer I think in English. You hang it on your belt, and you adjust the length of your step. So say if each step is half a metre, or two thirds of metre… And then every time you move, every time you take a step, there is inside the mechanism a balance wheel, which I suppose makes the whole meter move forward, and by the end of the day you know exactly what distance you’ve walked. So now you can do that of course with your Apple Hermes watch.
But then it was funny. And why did my father have that? People used to say that he was running around every day. He was such a busy and passionate entrepreneur, running up and down that building. And he bought the object, he had it covered with leather, which is quite chic. And I remember he was very proud, because he would come back home and say ‘today I walked seven kilometres’, you know, just between the first and the third floor. That’s quite an achievement! And I still remember the sound that object made.
Memories of the Faubourg Saint-Honore
One memory of the Faubourg Saint-Honore… My father was working there as a child. And my grandfather and I used to go after school – not every day, but at least once or twice a week – I would walk to the Faubourg, wait for my father to finish his work for him to take us home, with my sister. And he would always finish quite late. So first we would sit down, do our homework, and then we would start to play. It was fascinating for a child to see that building full of objects, some fascinating and beautiful, behind the windows. The glass showcases.
It was a little bit scary at times because everybody was gone, and I remember my father working late.
As a teenager, I spent five years going to the Hermes workshops after school every Wednesday. So I would go and spend four or five hours, and I worked with two wonderful craftsmen, who have both now passed away. And I learned to use my hands. I learned the craft of working with leather, and I spent many hours in the workshops.
And my memory of that is first of all the great atmosphere. The radio was always on. I remember listening to ‘Still Loving you’ by The Scorpions.
It was a warm and lively atmosphere, mostly men, which has changed. Today in our workshops, there’s about 60% women and 40% men, so it’s funny to see how that profession has evolved in many ways. And for me, as a teenager, it gave me a lot of self-confidence. I had no idea that I would spend so much time in my life with Hermes.
This was part of my family where I grew up, so it was the environment in which I grew up.
Dreams Fuel Creation
My first responsibility at Hermes is really to accompany all the creative studios to produce collections for Hermes season after season. However, in order to that, I need to keep my mind open and I need to somehow… foresee what is about to come, I need to dream.
So dreaming is an essential part of my work. But my first responsibility is to work with all the creative teams. And I have to create the conditions so that there’s enough space for the dream to emerge, and to be able to capture the unseen. So we are always dreaming.
In 2019, we at Hermes are going to celebrate the dream of Hermes. But this doesn’t mean we are dreaming just for 2019, I think we’ve always been dreaming since 1837.
I love the idea that I have an ancestor called Thierry Hermes, who was born in Krefeld which is now in Germany, and he dreamt… of going to Paris and opening his workshop. And he actually walked all the way from Germany to Paris in 1820 and eventually opened his workshop.
So the birth of Hermes is born out of a dream. Dreaming is the fuel of desire.
It is important even for us at Hermes to look at the culture of Hermes, at its history, every year from a different angle, and with the theme, we can reinvent ourselves of course, but also understand Hermes better and deeper. And with that understanding, then we can again project Hermes into the future.
The theme is also wonderful for me, an exciting way to give a certain unity to all the collections and to the communications of Hermes.
In 2019, let’s talk about dreaming.
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