SPECIAL CONTENTS

Eight delightful stories
by the professionals of
Ginza Maison Hermès

Here are a few anecdotes from the staff at Ginza Maison Hermès that might reveal a few secrets that you won’t learn just by visiting the store! Tap on any story that catches your interest.

Bonjour, and welcome to Ginza Maison Hermès!

Hello, I’m the store manager of the Hermès Ginza store, which occupies the lower levels of Ginza Maison Hermès. I like to think that we provide the widest collection of objets (products) in the world, on par with the Hermès store on rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris. You can see the exquisite craft in every item, as well as in the glass-block building designed by Renzo Piano and in the paintings and sculptures that adorn the store. The idea is to create a museum-like atmosphere that is pleasing to the eye, but also allows you to touch the displays and trace the handiwork of Hermès’s artisans with your own fingers. So, feel free to stop by to chat with us or even rendezvous with a friend. In fact, our 2nd-floor café is a perfect meeting spot!

Store manager, Hermès Ginza store

A small stage in Ginza

The window display of Ginza Maison Hermès is like an urban theatre stage that beckons passers-by to stop and watch. Once every three months, we invite creators from around the world to collaborate with us on a new window display. Very rarely, you might find the curtains of the display closed. That just means there’s going to be an exciting new show the following day!

Window display coordinator

A portable diary

The moment you place a watch on your wrist, it begins marking its time with you. You might call it a portable diary! It spends every moment with you, whether on your good days or your bad days. Depending on when you visit, the watch section on the watch and jewellery floor (3rd floor) is staffed either by a watch craftsperson or a watch salesperson. Whoever you encounter, they are bound to engage you in a passionate conversation about watches—and how Hermès watches express time a little differently than other watches. This is all to ensure that whenever you glance down at your wrist, you will vividly remember how you met your watch. If you need a battery replaced, staff can take care of your request while you browse around the store.

Watch expert

Coffee breaks at Hermès

Have you ever been to the far end of the home collection floor (2nd floor)? There’s a café there where you can take a break from your shopping. We serve teas made from fresh herbs, coffee, wine, and seasonal snacks. Our herbs and vegetables are both pesticide- and chemical-free and come from a farm operated by Hermès just for the café. We also serve a spirit made from the peels of the oranges we use in the café. It’s one way we try to avoid waste; in fact, we reuse all our kitchen waste as compost for the farm. We try to promote sustainability through our food.

Café manager

The horse whisperer

The horse was Hermès’s very first customer. The equestrian section located next to the leather section is staffed by an advisor who is a former Olympic equestrian. He will tell you about the uncompromising craft that went into each saddle—and maybe tell you a secret or two about horses. Having been around horses since he was a little boy, he knows these beautiful creatures better than anybody. Here, you will find the perfect saddle for you, along with a helmet, equestrian wear, and stirrups.

Equestrian technical advisor

Insights from storytellers

At the leather section on the leather and equestrian floor (4th floor), you can see every item in person to gain a true appreciation for the beauty that leather can imbue in an objet. The staff here are storytellers who can expand on the item’s history and distinctive production process, taking you on a journey to Hermès’s equestrian origins. The storyteller might be equipped with agenda covers they have used for years that contain secret notes, as well as a deep knowledge acquired by reading a variety of books. They might even tell you that every new form is the product of new techniques perfected by Hermès’s craftspeople and that only by using the item can you deduce its true value.

Leather expert

Doctors of fashion

The Ginza Maison Hermès repair atelier is staffed by two ready-to-wear “doctors”—a men’s tailor and a women’s tailor, both experienced specialists who can handle any type of ready-to-wear repair. If you’re lucky, they’ll even arrange a fitting for you and use their magic fingers to fulfil your every wish. Once, a customer brought in a hundred items that the two tailors spent a whole year repairing!

Ready-to-wear repairer

A second life

Our team of leather artisans includes highly experienced repairers from both Japan and France. French can be frequently heard inside the atelier, which often fills with the smell of toasted baguettes and homemade cheese in the mornings before work starts. You might think you’ve been transported to Paris! So, what do these artisans do? Why, prepare delicious breakfasts, of course! No, that’s not it. What they actually do is give the objets of Hermès a second life by spending every day mending and repairing them, just so you can use them longer. They’ll reshape each item beautifully but without erasing the qualities that mark the passage of time—the reminders of the many years you have spent with the objet.

Leather artisan

Space for art

“Art fills the maison (house) like air,” said the late Hermès chairpeople Jean-Louis Dumas. Nowhere is this truer than Le Forum on the 8th and 9th floors, an unusual gallery lit with natural light coming in through the building’s glass-block exterior. If light had a voice, this light would buzz like the city just outside. Although the space is accessible, the art itself is contemporary and challenging—works that the world might not be ready for yet. There is also an art cinema, Le Studio, on the 10th floor. Paris is home to many individualistic cinemas, and they have a special place in Hermès’s heart. Where else can you sit in the dark for an hour or two as you are transported to another world, and then immediately returned to your world once the adventure is over?

Curator