The renowned French fashion house Hermes is all set to create a India specific limited edition collection of silk sarees. The collection scheduled to be released in October this year will have only four to five expensive silk sarees priced at $1,800. A matching blouse will cost you an additional $500. Hermes had launched a similar collection way back in the year 2000. The silk mousseline sarees had retailed for about £1,200 with an additional 250 pounds for a matching blouse. The collection was sold through Hermes’ London store in Sloane Street and was designed by the Kolkata based designer Sunita Kumar.
Jean-Louis Dumas, the chief of Hermes had seen a saree made by Kumar by stitching together several Hermes scarves. It resulted in a collaboration between his son Pierre-Alexis Dumas and Sunita Kumar, who worked with Hermes’ inhouse designers to create the collection of Sarees. Kumar is not associated with the upcoming collection but is happy that Hermes is bringing the Saree to India again. Hermes had also launched a perfume in 2009 which was inspired by the arrival of monsoon in Kerala and was called the Garden of Monsoon.
The Indian market is growing in strength and has become a powerful market and the limited edition saree could be the first of several India-specific launches. Hermes has been systematically targeting luxury buyers in new markets and has come out stronger of the economic slowdown. Bernard Arnault of LVMH has been investing in Hermes and has raised its stake to 20%. But the Hermes family has, so far, successfully resisted the hostile takeover bid. The whole episode has given a lot of strength to the Hermes stocks that bucked the trend in a falling market and pushed the valuation of the company to a high $26 billion.
