Nowadays, Hermès is synonym for luxury and high-end fashion, but things have not always been this way: originally, and for many years after the fashion house was established, it had nothing to do with fashion, but used to make apparel for horseback riding.
In 1837, when Thierry Hermès moved to Paris from a little village in Normandy, he did not have luxury fashion collections in mind, but harnesses, saddles and other riding equipment.
From those saddles, the Hermès brand has gone a long way: from the first design of a bag made to carry riding equipment like boots or saddles – so appreciated that it was used a suitcase, too – to the contemporary Hermès bags, which have become real style icons, the brand has always known how to read and anticipate the market’s trends.
Hermès’s real strength has always been not just to enhance the exquisite quality of its products, but first and foremost to interpret these trends, and thus to increasingly make itself heard in setting the fashion of the moment.
Prizing sustainability is surely one of the house’s main goals, as it is well aware of what and how many efforts are necessary to grant customers the opportunity to choose a luxury product that can reflect not just a brand’s superior quality, but also its emblematic commitment to thinking fashion luxury in an ethical way.
In a series of films called “Footsteps Across the World”, film-maker and documentarist Frédéric Laffont has brought to light Hermès’s ties to sustainable development by telling them from an artist’s perspective.
The communication campaign “Footsteps Across the World” shows an all-round sustainable production: from a supply chain focusing on responsibly sourcing the raw materials to “green” production processes that respect human rights in every part of the world where the house maintains its productions plants.
