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Jean-Louis Dumas

Despite initial success, Hermès began declining in the 1970s compared to competitors who used new man-made materials, while Hermès insisted on natural materials. Jean-Louis Dumas became chairman in 1978 and revitalized the company by focusing on leather goods and ready-to-wear lines while adding new product groups made with traditional techniques. He brought in new designers who introduced python jackets and ostrich jeans to appeal to younger customers, launching ad campaigns featuring the products. However, this change in image caused outrage within and outside the company. Dumas also strengthened relationships with suppliers and acquired stakes in glassware and silverware manufacturers during this revival.

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Alexei Ciuchitu
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88 views1 page

Jean-Louis Dumas

Despite initial success, Hermès began declining in the 1970s compared to competitors who used new man-made materials, while Hermès insisted on natural materials. Jean-Louis Dumas became chairman in 1978 and revitalized the company by focusing on leather goods and ready-to-wear lines while adding new product groups made with traditional techniques. He brought in new designers who introduced python jackets and ostrich jeans to appeal to younger customers, launching ad campaigns featuring the products. However, this change in image caused outrage within and outside the company. Dumas also strengthened relationships with suppliers and acquired stakes in glassware and silverware manufacturers during this revival.

Uploaded by

Alexei Ciuchitu
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Despite the company's apparent success in the 1970s, exemplified by multiple shops' being

established worldwide, Hermès began to decline, compared to competitors. Some industry


observers have assigned the cause to Hermès's insistence on the exclusive use of natural materials
for its products, unlike other companies that were calling on new man-made materials. [6] During a
two-week lapse in orders, the Hermès workrooms were silent. [6] The renewed success of Hermès's
fragrances in the marketplace was probably due to the public's increasingly paradigmatic shift of
back to natural materials as opposed to artificial. This point undoubtedly contributed to reestablishing
Hermès's scents as a major player in the fragrances marketplace.
Jean-Louis Dumas, the son of Robert Dumas-Hermès, became chairman in 1978 and had the firm
concentrate on silk and leather goods and ready-to-wear, adding new product groups to those made
with its traditional techniques. Unlike his father, Jean-Louis was maternally related to the Hermès
family. Travelling extensively[4] and marrying Rena Greforiadès, he entered the buyer-training
program at Bloomingdale's, the New York department store. Having joined the family firm in 1964,
he was instrumental in turning around its decline.[6]
Dumas brought in designers Eric Bergère and Bernard Sanz to revamp the apparel collection and, in
collaboration, added unusual entries. They included the python motorcycle jackets and ostrich-skin
jeans, which were dubbed as "a snazzier version of what Hermès has been all along." (Annual sales
in 1978, when Jean-Louis became head of the firm, were reported at US$50 million.[6] By 1990,
annual sales were reported at US$460 million, mainly due to Dumas's strategy.) In 1979, he
launched an advertising campaign featuring a young, denim-clad woman wearing an Hermès scarf.
The purpose was to introduce the Hermès brand to a new set of consumers. As one fashion-sector
observer noted: "Much of what bears the still-discreet Hermès label changed from the object of an
old person's nostalgia to the subject of young peoples' dreams." [6] However, Dumas's change-of-
image created outrage both within and outside of the firm.
Also in the 1970s, the watch subsidiary, La Montre Hermès, was established in Bienne, Switzerland.
Then, throughout the 1980s, Dumas strengthened the company's hold on its suppliers, [6] resulting in
Hermès's gaining great stakes in prominent French glassware, silverware acquiring
venerable tableware manufacturers such as Puiforcat, St. Louis, and Périgord. [6]

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