Hermès Expands Production Capabilities with New Leather Facility in Normandy

Hermès is expanding its production capacity. The French luxury company will launch a leather goods workshop in Les Andelys, in the Normandy region of France. The new center will employ 260 people, Hermès announced in a statement. Since 2010, the maison has opened thirteen leather goods workshops in France.

The new workshop is in addition to the two the company already has in the town: in Val-de-Reuil, operating since 2017, and in Louviers, inaugurated in 2023. With the aim of strengthening its own production, the company will also launch a new warehouse in Colombelles, also in Normandy.

The artisans will be trained at the École Hermès des savoir-faire in Louviers by France Travail and the Normandy education authority. The initiative was carried out in collaboration with the Normandy Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the urban authority of the Agglomération Seine Normandie and the municipality of Les Andelys itself.

Since 2010, Hermès has set up as many as thirteen Moroccan workshops

The aim is for the center to draw on the expertise of local leather goods workshops and the École Hermès des savoir-faire, a training center certified by the French Ministry of Education. The project will complement others that Hermès currently has in place in French towns such as Loupes (Gironde), Charleville-Mézières (Ardennes) and Colombelles (Calvados).

But France is not the only region Hermès is targeting. In November, the company announced its first-ever investment in the capital of an Italian supplier. It bought 15% of the Italian mill Lanificio Colombo, specialized in the processing and production of cashmere and historical supplier of the firm.

Hermès remains unaffected by the luxury crisis. The group closed the third quarter of the year with a turnover of €3.9 billion, an increase of 5% over the same period last year. At constant exchange rates, sales rose by 10%. In the first nine months of the year, the group posted sales of €11.9 billion, up 6.3% in reported terms and 9% at constant exchange rates.