Hermès in the Making in Shenzhen
Meet the artisans behind Hermès’ sustainable craftsmanship
Tide Square, Shenzhen Talent Park
17th May to 1st June, 2025
Discover how we craft objects designed to last and be repaired, to be used and passed down through generations.
Since its founding in 1837, six generations of artisans have safeguarded and nurtured their historic know-how in the Hermès workshops. This heritage is a living, flourishing and constantly evolving treasure trove of artisanal skills. Hermès in the Making brings craftspeople from nearly ten of the house’s métiers to offer a sneak-peek into their expert techniques and exclusive know-how. Their work echoes the heart of Hermès: preserving and developing savoir-faire – expertise which is often linked to a historical tradition or region – a quest for quality, durability and innovation, and respect for the surrounding environments.
This event features live demonstrations, workshops, interactive activities, and films spread throughout the space. Customize your visit according to your curiosity and interests.
Tide Square, Shenzhen Talent Park
No. 3329, Keyuan South Road, Nanshan District, Shenzhen
17th May to 1st June 1, 2025
Closed on Monday (19th and 26th May)
A culture of traditional craftsmanship
Since the creation of Hermès in 1837, the six generations of craftsmen who have succeeded each other in the workshops have preserved and nurtured their know-how. The repertoire of craftsmanship skills is vibrant and continually growing.
Crafting a saddle
This is the foundational expertise of Hermès, where traditional craftsmanship meets sport. Each saddle is made to respect the technical requirements and the comfort of the rider for the various equestrian disciplines, such as jumping, dressage, and cross-country. The leather pieces are assembled on a central saddle tree, which is made of wood, and then hammered into place using nails cast from a single piece of metal for optimal resistance. The seat, panels, and flaps are lined, shaped, and then sewn, using saddle-stitching, and are designed to be so light and immaterial as to offer an unprecedented sense of closeness between the rider and the horse. Hermès saddles are made in association with partner riders who come from the highest level of equestrian competition and incorporate new materials as well as the latest technologies.
The saddle stitch is an Hermès signature. The two ends of the same thread are crossed at each stitch into the pieces of leather to join them together. This robust assembly technique ensures that Hermès leather objects endure generations, remaining perfectly intact even if a stitch were to break.
Separating the colour
The engraving artist is responsible for the precision and complexity of Hermès scarf designs. The full-scale original design is deconstructed and manually traced by the engraver using a stylus onto a transparent film. A digital file is then created for each colour of the silk scarf. This file also includes information regarding the different finishing effects, colour gradients, and contours of the design. This information is used to guide the production of the print frames, with each screen letting only one colour through. On average, reproducing a scarf requires 25 to 30 colours, but more complex designs can demand up to 48 shades!
Silk engraving is one of the rare métiers Hermès uses to make its silk scarves and has been inherited from the tradition of silk work in Lyon. In 2006, Établissements Marcel Gandit, the textile engraver from Bourgoin-Jallieu and long-standing partner since 1948, was integrated into Hermès.
Printing the silk
At Hermès, the silk scarf is made using the “Lyon” silkscreen printing process, named after the geographical region where the flatbed screen technique was perfected. This step follows the engraving in keeping with the aesthetic guidelines provided by the artistic direction. A team of colour specialists creates the colour range to make up the finished scarf. They can choose from over 75,000 colour shades expressive of the creative spirit of Hermès. Once the colours have been approved, they are applied onto huge rolls of white silk twill using a mesh frame – stretched over steel gauze. This successive printing process results in a bounty of dazzling scarves. After they have dried, they are fixed by steaming, washed and finished, and the hems are then hand-rolled before the scarves can be folded and placed into their orange boxes.
It takes three years to master this silk screen printing technique, with two of these years under the watchful eye of a tutor. The artisan supervises the process at a 150-meter-long printing table. The colour is poured by hand with control, following a pre-determined order, and the speed of printing is carefully calibrated.
High-quality materials
Kaolin, stone, straw, wood, leather, silk, horn… Exceptional materials of mineral, plant and animal origin are elevated by Hermès artisans.
Painting on porcelain
Porcelain painting is the art of transferring a design or pattern onto exceptional pieces of different sizes and shapes. Plates, vases, and other porcelain items get a fresh look in the hands of the artisan, using a wide palette of vibrant colours and a series of different brushes to bring the design to life. With remarkable dexterity, the porcelain artisan must use their powers of composition to render the original design as intricately as possible. The contours of the design are first outlined using a brush, before the colours are filled in. The pattern is then refined: some areas of colour are made uniform using a foam brush, while other areas are temporarily covered with a masking varnish. The full vividness of the colours is only revealed after several firings in kilns with temperatures up to 800°C.
In the 18th century, the Europeans realized that the secret to the whiteness of porcelain from China was due to the presence of kaolin in the paste. Since then, porcelain has been produced in France thanks to the discovery of stores of kaolin in Saint-Yrieix-la-Perche near Limoges.
Setting gemstones
Stone setting is a technique used to securely attach gemstones into jewellery. Whether it is grain, claw, or close setting, the choice of setting is first determined by the shape and design of the piece at Hermès. Grain setting is a technique by which diamonds or other precious stones are secured in the indentation of the metal using tiny prongs called “beads.” Then, with the help of a steel pusher called a “flat graver,” the metal shavings or grains are pushed and carved around the stones. In this painstaking process, the artisan uses binocular magnification.
The gold and silver used to craft Hermès jewellery pieces are primarily sourced from the European precious metals recycling program. Grain-size tailings, plates or thread produced as scrap by various industries are reused in the process. Hermès does not therefore use gold from mines in its jewellery.
The talent of our regions
Hermès has established its production facilities in regions that have long-standing specific know-how, such as silk in Lyon, glove-making in Haute-Vienne, and porcelain in Limousin.
Making gloves
Glove-making may seem deceptively simple, but it's not: twenty-two steps are required to create the final product. In the first step, the glove-maker assesses the quality of the hides. The inner flesh side is softened using a sponge, and the outer grain side is powdered using talc. The leather is stretched and pulled to ensure that the glove will keep its shape and suppleness with use. At this stage, the different pieces of leather used for the hands, the thumbs, the parts between the fingers, and seams are chosen and laid out so that the material is used as resourcefully as possible. The “ironhand” shape-cutter, invented in the 19th century, is then used to cut out the exact shape for each finger. After they are hand-sewn, the gloves are slipped onto ""hot-hand" irons for the final touch of elegance.
The Hermès Ganterie of Saint-Junien, in the heart of the Limousin region, is a certified “Entreprise du patrimoine vivant,” a label used to designate a Living Heritage Company in France and reserved for exceptional techniques with long-standing geographic roots found in certain territories. The tradition of glove-making traces its roots to the Middle Ages in this region, which is renowned for its livestock rearing.
Working the leather
The dexterity of our leather workers is the main secret behind the quality of an Hermès bag. A wealth of skill and know-how is deployed in assembling the forty or so leather pieces that go into the making of a Kelly bag. Merely structuring the bag requires assembling the body using gussets, which demands a careful balance of strength and finesse. The leather pieces are held in place between the arms of the leather workers using a wooden clamp, while their agile fingers join them together using the saddle stitch. No machine can replace the long hours put in at the workshop needed to master this technique, in which two ends of the same beeswax-coated linen thread are crossed at each stitch into the leather. Thus, the quality of the artisan’s dexterity prevails over their initial training.
100% of Hermès bags are handcrafted in France. Since 2010, an average of one leather goods workshop per year has been inaugurated, to support the growth of the métier. Each site recruits between 250 and 280 artisans, an intimate, human-scale model that is conducive to the transmission of traditional know-how and skills.
Time, our ally
The house’s creations are of their time, but they have no planned obsolescence: Hermès objects are designed to last, to be repaired and passed on.
Keeping in step with time
Plate, Bridges, Trains, barrel, balance. For anyone other than a master watchmaker, assembling all these delicate elements within the confined case of a timepiece would be a head-scratching puzzle. Only their deft, skilled movements can conduct the elaborate mechanical orchestration required for high-complication models, including hundreds of components such as moon phases, perpetual calendars, or minute repeaters. With gloved hands and their eye glued to the magnifying loupe, our master watchmakers carefully lay out the static components onto the disc of the watch, which is also called a plate. The gear train is then delicately calibrated to create
the mechanical movement that helps the watch keep time in tune with the world.
Time is an ally for Hermès and a fertile playground for our master watchmakers. They invent whimsical complications that embrace different ways of conceptualizing or pausing time. One-of-a kind mechanisms such as Le temps suspendu [suspended time], L’heure impatiente [the impatient moment – a special reminder], and L’heure de la Lune [the time of the moon] allow wearers to step outside time and into a dreamscape of their making.
Repairing objects
Our leather repair specialists possess the expertise of our saddlers and leather workers. They tend to our customers’ objects with great care, whether to give them a little spruce-up or to completely repair and restore parts that may have undergone wear and tear over time. Simply reworking the saddle stitch or refreshing the colour can help lend a bag, belt, or agenda a new lease on life. These seasoned leather workers, trained in the Hermès workshops, pull out all stops in their search for the miracle solution. Repair and restoration are a matter of experience, but also demand ingenuity, creativity, and determination.
Each year, more than 200,000 Hermès objects are brought to our stores by their owners for repair or restoration. Our after-sales service carefully studies the requirements before entrusting them to the hands of our leather repair experts, who work out of a dozen workshops spread across the world's largest cities.
Previous editions
China is the twelfth chapter of Hermès In The Making, a travelling event on Hermès' unique and sustainable know-how which continues its journey across the world ever since its first stop in Copenhagen back in October 2021. In May 2025, Hermès In The Making will be presented in Shenzhen.