Hermès boosts the production of its silk scarves | The echoes
The Hermès silk scarves printing factory is located in Pierre-Bénite, south of Lyon, on the site designated in 1968 by a dowser, above the underground river La Mouche. The site, which currently employs 460 people, will accommodate three new buildings and two other flat frame printing lines. This traditional technique known as "à la lyonnaise", without rotary presses, is still implemented by the last great Lyonnais silk manufacturer on an industrial scale, luxury quality.
The 90 cm wide rolls of unbleached silk are printed on heated tables 150 meters long, with precision to a hundredth of a millimeter in the application of colors (there are 75,000 in the Hermès color chart). A design has an average of 27 shades, so 27 frames. These frames are large nylon stencils coated with varnish, except at the location of the patterns to allow the applied dye to pass through the porous canvas.
They scroll across the silk in a specific order, from the darkest to the lightest color, and from the smallest patterns to the largest. From now on, nine lines will print the ten new drawings by artists whose collection grows every six months, each available in ten different colours.
9% of turnover with silk
The Pierre-Bénite factory, reorganized around green patios and an overhead walkway, will house a new company restaurant and will see its logistics space renovated . The investment of a confidential amount will generate the creation of 120 jobs throughout the Holding Textile Hermès, which has 860. They are mainly located in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes through nine weaving, engraving, printing and tailoring entities. , which cover the entire production chain with the exception of the culture of the bombyxes.
Silk represented 9% of Hermès' turnover in 2018 (of a total of 6 billion euros). This very regional activity produces the classic square scarves sold for 370 euros, but also ties, not printed but woven in dyed yarn. The horse-drawn carriage brand is steadily pursuing its investments in Lyon. For the past eight years, it has enlarged the weaving factory in Bussières in the Loire, built the engraving workshop in Bourgoin-Jallieu and doubled its workforce.
Leather goods are not forgotten at the saddler, who inaugurated his 17th leather workshop in Fitilieu, in Isère. It will accommodate a hundred craftsmen and an integrated training school with 50 places to supply the four sites of the Dauphiné-Savoie cluster. In addition, in June and September Hermès will lay the first stone of its 18th and 19th leather goods factories in Gironde and Seine-et-Marne, each intended to employ 250 people. Waiting for the 20th by 2021, in Louviers.
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