Flint points and tools, the jaw of a horse. In Louviers, Normandy, a hundred kilometers from his headquarters in Paris, Hermès has closed his circle. The discovery of remains that demonstrate knowledge of leather taming and tanning during the Paleolithic has been providential, but above all symbolic, for the French luxury brand. So much so that he established the crown jewel of his network of Norman workshops at the scene: the Maroquinerie de Louviers. A tribute to the know-how of the past to the greater glory of the future of such a historical-cultural legacy.
Projected as a reflection on its heritage and values, with craftsmanship as a starting and ending point, the brand new center is not just one of the pillars with which the house wants to reinforce its production in the next three years – there are plans to inaugurate two more factories between 2025 and 2026 – but also the long-awaited conclusion of its sustainable commitment. In fact, it is the only industrial complex in the country that has achieved the E4C2 certificate for energy efficiency and minimum carbon footprint to date.
“From construction to day-to-day operation, everything has been designed to ensure that the building embraces, expands and complements its natural surroundings,” concedes Alex Dumas, CEO of Hermès, sixth generation of the founding clan. The Franco-Lebanese architect Lina Ghotmeh has ensured that this is the case with a bioclimatic design in which the local materials used, the use of natural light and the use of renewable energies (geothermal and solar) give the measure of its environmental ambitions. “It is a fusion between the object and the artisan, the artisan and the space, the space and the landscape,” she says.
The 6,200 square meters of the complex accommodate 260 experts who shape the firm's coveted bags, small leather accessories and equestrian saddlery pieces. "You can think of it as a factory, a museum, a cultural center or a residence. The essential thing is that its architecture is virtuous, that it emanates beauty, tells the story of its environment and, above all, the history of Hermès," Ghotmeh points out. For that matter, the house of the Birkin bag and the carré scarf is not alone in this endeavor.
In mid-June, taking advantage of the coincidence with the summer edition of the Pitti Immagine Uomo men's ready-to-wear fair in Florence, Fendi opened its second Tuscan facilities: a 30,000 m2 factory in Capannuccia, where the oven once stood Brunelleschi foundry. In fact, the ruins have been integrated into an environment that also houses seven hectares of organic farming, with seven hundred olive trees. With a single open floor plan, which houses prototype design and production workshops, offices, a craftsman's school and service spaces, the building is the work of the Milanese studio Piuarch, in collusion with the architecture division of the firm itself.
Bestsellers such as the Peekaboo bags and, of course, the Baguette now show that they have received manufacturing in this sustainable atelier that will produce around 200,000 items a year and in which 125 workers are currently working (a number that will increase to 700 in the next five years). Silvia Venturini Fendi, creative director of the Fendi man, wanted to be accompanied on the final walk after the parade of the spring/summer 2024 collection assigned to the Pitti Uomo calendar that served to inaugurate facilities to which the LVMH group - owner of the teaches – has allocated 50 million euros, the highest amount ever invested in one of its factories on Italian soil.
As ironclad as it is creative, the production policy of the leading French holding company in the field of luxury aims to record its centenary savoir faire and prolong its (necessary) transmission. In 2020, it launched what, to this day, are the greatest exponents of such a strategy: the Abbaye de Vendôme and Oratoire workshops, in the Loire Valley, dedicated to Louis Vuitton's leather goods. An 11th century abbey, recovered after three years of complete renovation, houses the first, which is considered to be the “heart of experience and core of knowledge in the creation of valuable leather bags” of the firm. Meanwhile, Oratoire, with its pioneering bioclimatic design, has established the foundations for the second generation of sustainable ateliers, putting the requirements and needs of leather goods work in future perspective, which by 2024 will employ almost 6,000 people among the 18 factories it owns. LVMH only in France.
The maneuvers of luxury to prolong its relevance and reason for being also involve more or less unsuspected alliances, such as the one that in 2021 united the Zegna group with Prada in the acquisition of the Filati Biagioli Modesto spinning mill or the one that last May became partners of textile bedding to Chanel and Brunello Cucinelli, now joint shareholders of the historic Cariaggi Lanificio, which guarantees the supply of the precious cashmere.
