So how does one become a Hermès craftsman?

Each leather item is fashioned by a single craftsman (from cutting the pattern to packaging the finished product), and each item is stamped with the specific mark of the employee who created it. Hermès articles are exquisitely refined and their production requires a high degree of patience and precision. To uphold this traditional know-how, synonymous with the name Hermès, the company has centralised all of its production activity in large workshops. In the early 1980s, it acquired various craftsmen workshops on the verge of closing in a move to protect and retain the highly specialised skills required to make Hermès products. In parallel to this, Hermès also trains the workers entrusted with preserving the company’s manufacturing secrets. As such, it has developed numerous educational partnerships with public and private schools. These establishments offer students the opportunity to obtain their technical or vocational training certificate under the guidance of a specialised Hermès instructor dispatched by the company. This guest professor is involved in the training process and transmits the company’s extremely specific techniques. Often, the students (who already have a secondary school diploma or equivalency) are involved in a learning programme whereby they spend equal amounts of time at school and at the Hermès workshops. Like other secondary schools in the centre or north of France, the Abbé Grégoire School, located in Paris, has signed a partnership agreement with Hermès. Such establishments offer diplomas that provide generalised training, after which some students are sent on-site to Hermès for a certain period of time in order to learn specific techniques. During this training, the apprentices are required to learn the skills necessary for crafting five styles of bags, in five different colours and five types of leather. If at the end of this trial period the apprentice has not acquired the requisite expertise, he may be asked to leave - in the interests of the company’s reputation. Becoming a Hermès craftsman requires patience: once this initial step has been successfully completed, novices will remain under the supervision of a trainer for an additional three years. The gradual incorporation of new workers into the company enables them to develop their abilities while acquiring the unmistakable Hermès style. They become company assets who guarantee the quality of the items sold. As this French family-run business moves further away from its original scope of activities, it continues to expand its lineage, ensuring that future generations also discover the Hermès commitment to fine materials and rigorous craftsmanship. (taken from Actualité en France (magazine of the ministry of Foreign Affairs))