Hermès Jewelry: Asian Market Consumer Dynamics & Pricing

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That's a long journey through Hermès. Really impressive. You've seen quite a bit at the firm and in the industry. Before I start with my prepared questions, I have two or three questions about what you just explained. You mentioned that jewelry moved from more silver to more gold. When did this transformation start?

It was back in the day when the roadmap was given to the previous managing director, Laurence Reulet. She was in charge of the jewelry department and used to work at the Hermès flagship in Paris at the Faubourg. Back then, all the Parisian ladies and chic ladies in Japan were probably using silver. There's this very iconic bracelet at Hermès called the Anchor Chain, which you might be familiar with; it's in silver. Silver is something Europeans and Americans are more accustomed to. At that time, we understood that the market in Asia and the Middle East was more about gold. Big goldsmiths like Chow Tai Fook in Hong Kong, for instance. So, I think the roadmap given by the board and the family was to increase diversity and revenues, aiming for more dividends. Moving from silver to gold was just the next chapter. They had silver, then gold, which includes three variations. You have white gold, yellow gold, and pink gold, and then they started to work with diamonds. Of course, once you have touched that, you want to go for the next step which is to work on the stones. Then they created this collection called haute bijouterie, and I worked on number one, number two, and I think number three, usually under the creation of Pierre Hardy, who has his own brand at Hermes, where he’s in charge of shoes and jewelry design.

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