What do a lump of bee wax,a bottle of dye,a hammer,a filet (not the fish but the French word for a sharp electronically heated tool) and a perloir (also a French word for a steel punch that makes holes in the shape of pearls) have in common? For one,they are all used to put together an Hermes Bearn wallet. Indeed,Parisian brand Hermes has a long-standing tradition of hand-stitching individual pieces instead of assembly line,industrial production. To celebrate this tradition,the French luxury house hosted an evening of high fashion at its Mumbai store on Thursday. The evening started with artisan Valerie Vazquez-Pascual demonstrating the making of the Hermes Bearn wallet. Valerie,who has over two decades of experience,pointed out that the biggest asset of a craftsman is his patience. You have to keep working on every little detail till you get it right, she said. She explained the trademark saddle stitch of what was essentially a saddler brand and proceeded to dye the edges of the wallet. She showed how running the filet along the rim of the half-finished wallet was extremely important as it evened out the dye on the edges and helped iron out the impurities of the exotic leather. A quick polishing session with bee wax and sand paper followed and she ended the session with the use of the perloir to fix the buckle on the strap of the wallet. While Valerie wrapped up within an hour,the actual process takes a lot more. In fact,it takes anywhere between 4-5 hours to complete one such wallet. This painstaking process got highlighted yet again in the second part of the evening that saw the screening of the film Hearts and Crafts: The People That Make Hermes by French filmmakers Frédéric Laffont and Isabelle Dupuy-Chavanat . The technical glitches may have played spoilsport initially and delayed the screening,but the 47-minute French film (with English subtitles) did capture the beauty of the Hermes legacy. Be it a deaf and mute person,a 20-year-old girl struggling to buy a house of her own or a 58-year-old man who admits to finally finding his niche,the film concentrated mainly on the artisans talking about the saddles,Kelly bags,silk scarves and the metal jewellery that they make. Focussing on the non-glam side of the fashion house was a wise decision but the film remained impersonal as it didnt mention the names of these artisans and their locations. What tied the film together was the artisans undying love for their work; the tone for this was set from the first scene where an artisan noted,When dealing with horses,mastery is required. And therein lies the secret of the fashion behemoth.
