Pierre Alexis Dumas on Hermès costs
The distinction between costly and expensive is where Pierre Alexis Dumas, the Hermès heir, draws his line. He says people keep telling him Hermès is very costly rather than just expensive, and he agrees because the cost reflects the actual price of making an object properly with the required level of attention to ensure quality. That logic applies to a $9,000 Birkin or anything else they make. The real problem starts when something is defined as expensive, which happens when a product does not deliver what it is supposed to deliver even though you paid quite a large amount of money for it. In that scenario, the item betrays you, and that betrayal is exactly what makes something truly expensive instead of merely costly.
Transcript (en)
It's very costly. It's not expensive. It's costly. What's the difference? The cost is the actual price of making an object properly, with the required level of attention so that you have an object of quality. Expensive is a product which is not delivering what it's supposed to deliver, but you've paid quite a large amount of money for it, and then it betrays you. expensive. A distinctly French philosophy stitched into the DNA of Hermes. Dumas says the company has never had a marketing department. Its allure, he says, comes from a century of superb craftsmanship and serendipity. Take this trapezoid-shaped purse. In 1935, Dumas' grandfather designed the bag. It wasn't a hit. But as legend has it, 20 years later, an expecting Grace Kelly used the bag to to hide her belly from peering paparazzi. Soon, women flooded Hermès, asking for what was eventually renamed the Kelly bag. Hermès scarves have been favored by American royalty and actual royalty for decades, the kind of product placement money can't buy. Even the brand's famous citrus-colored boxes, a color the company trademarked in the U.S., was a happy accident of the 1940s. In 1946, there was shortage of everything. And when my great uncle went to see his supplier of paper manufacturing boxes, the supplier said, I'm sorry, we don't have that beige paper anymore. Because of the war? Yeah, because of the war and short supplies. And he said, I only have that stock of that roll of orange paper that nobody wants. Eyes light up when they see that orange. Yeah, serendipity.
