Hermès Festival of Crafts, the first travelling Hermès Festival des Métiers made its first stop in Asia at Paragon, Singapore. A vibrant celebration of renowned Hermès craftsmanship in modern setting by internationally acclaimed Milanese designer Paola Navone, Hermès artisans will be demonstrating at their workbenches the skills of leather welding and stitching of leather goods, saddles, silk engraving and painting of scarves, tie sewing, watch making, jewelry setting and porcelain painting.
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Oh how time really flies! Almost a month ago on 1 September, I had the privilege to enjoy the VIP-only launch of Hermes Festival Des Metiers in Singapore Paragon, at the invitation of my friend, Bini. The showcase was open to public from 3rd September onwards.
Bini’s Hermes eye and arm candy of the night:
It was a wonderful experience, to see the craftsmen and women at work and to see how the tradition of Hermes lives on, with the passion of the people that choose to maintain it. It’s a lot of hardwork to continue producing every piece by hand but it is precisely so that Hermes products are what it’s worth. 😉
If you missed the showcase, here’s a few photographs that Bini and I took from the event! 🙂
Starting off with a young french lady who’s demonstrating how prepares the leather for a Hermes pink leather bag (I can’t remember exactly what bag now :/). At this point, she has combined two pieces of leather and she is working the sides by smoothening it. Basically the crafts-people are all french and only speak french, so there are interpreters next to them to interpret what they are saying.
Then an older lady showing how she prepares the leather to create an Hermes wallet.
Another lady was demonstrating how she paints the porcelain bowls.
In this demonstration, a suave french man is showing how he creates a saddle for a horse. Hermes first started with horse-riding accessories and saddles. So although they don’t sell horse saddles in Singapore (which they do abroad), they are demonstrating this as it’s party of their history and heritage!
In this demonstration, a younger and charming man is showing how he ‘plants’ diamonds on the hardware for Hermes jeweled bracelets. As the diamonds are very small, he does it via a microscope and its… no easy feat!
For the last and perhaps one of the most interesting demonstration is how Hermes masters conduct their silk-screen printing on the legendary Hermes scarfs. The master explains how back in France, they would place 150 scarfs in a row and print all at one go. For tedious prints, there can be up to 40 layers and that would mean they would have to go up and down the row of 150 scarfs 40 times! O.O
This showcase has definitely deepened my understanding and appreciation of Hermes heritage and their strive in delivering luxurious products to their clients. Hopefully you have also gained greater insight about Hermes from this post! 🙂
xx