FASHION FEATURE: Hermès, the chic French woman's discreet badge of honour, is coming to Dublin. Deirdre McQuillan visits the company's silk factory in Lyon to see the signature scarves being produced.
A keen, bargain-hunting, Paris-based friend, a regular at the depots-vente, or sales outlets in the city, told me once that the only time she ever saw a really heated fight was at the annual Hermès sale, and it was two men wrangling over a silk tie.
Such is the iconic status of Hermès, a French institution almost as famous as the Louvre or the Eiffel Tower, that its name has always been associated with luxury and craftsmanship. It began as a saddle and harness-making business in Paris in 1837 and still proudly boasts that it takes longer to learn how to make a Hermès saddle than to become a doctor.
The production of the famous Hermès scarf, worn like a bustier by Madonna, under the chin by Queen Elizabeth or by the ultra-chic as a waist sash or hairband, is an intensive, long-drawn-out process too, taking some two years from start to finish. The process is completed in Lyon, a city renowned for silk printing and home to a celebrated textile museum. Such is the insistence on excellence that any scarves with imperfections are burnt rather than sold as seconds. Some 40,000 scarves a week can be produced at the factory; the current price for one is around €245. Silk ties (around €125) are also printed here, their designs numbered rather than given names.
When Kamel Hamadou joined Hermès in Lyon as a young man 16 years ago, he didn't have a clue about silk, knew nothing about cocoons, and cared less about women's scarves. Today, he can discourse eloquently on the advantages of Brazilian over Chinese silk, on screen-printing and shade pigmentation. He explains that twice a year a theme is decided in Paris by Jean Louis Dumas, head of the company, and a team of some 50 designers come up with ideas, which are actually artworks in gouache.
"There should be a story in each scarf and though Monsieur Dumas wields the baton, we are the musicians," says Hamadou, who has the responsibility of supervising the realisation of those designs in silk. What really sets a Hermès scarf apart, he says, is the number of colours used, up to 42 in some cases, though the average is 25.
When the design is selected, engravers must study it and analyse the number of colours. "The tools of the printers are their eyes," says Hamadou. Every colour demands a printing screen or transparency and the more there are, the longer and more labour intensive the printing process is, though all scarves are priced equally. In 1994, 35 screens or transparencies required for a design called "Celebrations of the Sun King" took 1,200 hours to make.
In the factory, lined with posters proclaiming "La Qualité combat Quotidien", eight 100-metre printing tables, like long steel catwalks, allow batches of 100 36-inch squares to be printed. In the pigment room, pots of colour are stirred with wooden spoons like sauces, and measured until the exact nuance of shade is achieved. Only then can printing start.
Colour specialists translate or repaint the original design into different colour combinations, with as many as 18 alternative "harmonies" presented for each one. This visual compatibility of tones and shades is a highly skilled process, demanding both natural aptitude and long training. It is quite extraordinary to see the effect colour modifications on silk can create, such as different facial expressions, for example.
There are 40 "mother colours", but more than 75,000 shades from which the colour "diva" must make her selection; no computer holds that kind of database and computers are used only to memorise patterns. From 18 different colourations of the one design, some 10-12 will be selected for presentation to Monsieur Dumas. His approval can take up to three months coming from Paris, before the scarves eventually go into production.
Artists are paid for the original design and receive royalties if it goes into a second edition.
The first 36-inch scarf square, based on one worn by Napoleon's soldiers, was made in 1928. Traditionally associated with equestrian motifs, classic designs such as "Feathers", "Spurs" or "Keys" are recoloured regularly. Some of the most popular have included "Gala Brides" (around 70,000 sold), and an unusual motif from a young Ugandan called "Sefedine" for the millennium was a great success. Celebrated artists such as Matisse have also been commissioned over the years, and one currently successful designer is an American Indian living in Texas, a postman who loves drawing.
Once printed, the hems are rolled and stitched by women in their own homes, using silk thread, each one taking approximately 45 minutes to complete, the corners being particularly tricky. The women are paid per unit rather than by time. One of the group has been with the company 40 years.
The current theme for autumn/winter is "Fantasie in Silk," a freewheeling collection of some familiar motifs updated in zany new colours, as well as fresh new designs with names such as "Whirl", "Get Your Crayons Out" and "Coptic Garden". Beautiful though they may be, the 36-inch squares remain unshakable emblems of the French haute bourgeoisie, whether worn around the neck, or tied to a handbag. Chic young Parisians today prefer the "twill" (€100), a long, narrow band worn in the hair or around the wrist, Hermès silk, of course.
The Hermès shop opens in Brown Thomas, Dublin on Tuesday