This document provides information about a new book published by Actes Sud and Hermès that details the unique vocabulary used by craftspeople in Hermès workshops. The book collects 91 verbs used to describe various craft techniques, preserving a linguistic heritage that is unique to Hermès. Written by Olivier Saillard, the book explores the rich, expressive vocabulary shaped by the crafts' long history through anecdotes and observations. It offers insights into fashion, its practices and crafts for the curious reader.

1. An
ACTES SUD | HERMÈS
Press release
Actes Sud and Hermès love
to share their stories and their
love of books and the arts.
After the installation of the
Chaîne d’encre bookshop in
ABC
of Hermès
the Hermès store on Rue de
Sèvres, and the temporary stand
organised at the Saut Hermès
au Grand Palais, they have
teamed up again for a series
of publishing projects.
Crafts
The first of these is this book
on the unusual idiolect
spoken by the craftsmen in the
Hermès workshops.
Publication:
14 March 2012 Olivier Saillard
A chanson de gestes: such was the definition of Hermès proffered by a visitor being taken around
the workshops one day. A veritable “land of the hand”, Hermès is now proficient in sixteen dif-
OLIVIER SAILLARD
ferent types of activity. The artisans in these métiers proceed as connoisseurs, making saddles,
garments, hats, shoes, bespoke shirts, printed silk, perfume, gloves, jewellery, watches, homeware
An and tableware. To this ever-open list its fellow companies add the arts of working crystal, silver
and gold, and boot-making. These unique forms of expertise are enacted in dextrous, expert ac-
ABC tions, precise and meticulous techniques with no room for chance or hesitation. While some-
times impossible to describe without the aid of a manual demonstration, each of these techniques
of Hermès
Crafts has its own accredited verb, testament to the close and venerable partnership between doing
and saying.
This makes Hermès the privileged holder of an original linguistic heritage. Words forged in the
workshop, some never having left its closed circle, some never cited in any dictionary, some fa-
miliar or almost esoteric, sometimes easily translated onomatopoeia or syllables hermetic to all
ACTES SUD | HERMÈS
but initiates, a few of them rare or even lost, others freshly or naively invented – they form a
distinct, rich and expressive vocabulary shaped by the long memory of their craft, wearing the
patina of use, revisited by the eccentricities of oral transmission, in a thesaurus that is nectar for
FORMAT: 10 X 19 CM/160 PAGES linguists, sociologists, poets and simply the curious.
SOFTBOUND WITH FLAPS
20 €
For the first time, at the initiative of Pierre-Alexis Dumas, the house’s Artistic Director, Hermès
AVAILABLE IN FRENCH is opening its book of words of the tribe, bringing together some ninety-one verbs in the inven-
AND ENGLISH tive and inspired prose of Olivier Saillard. From abat-carrer to visiter, via bichonner, chipoter,
PRESSE CONTACT
décreuser, gratte-bosser, insculper, liéger, marier, palissonner, planer, putoiser, rétreindre, roulot-
ACTES SUD: ter and sabrer, this lover of language familiar with the innermost folds of fashion was given full
Sophie Patey latitude to play on incongruities, correspondences, shifts of meaning and syllogisms – and even
s.patey@actes-sud.fr the nonsensicality that is just begging to be spotted (for example, when a leather worker adds a
Tel. 01 55 42 14 43
second lining the word is doubler, when it should logically be tripler, and when a gilder speaks
Assisted by Élodie Cédé of blocking he says he is striking – frapper – yet his hand is nothing if not gentle.
e.cede@actes-sud.fr
Tel.: +33 (0) 01 55 42 14 40
With intelligence, erudition, poetry, irony and tenderness, Olivier Saillard mixes anecdote and
observation to offer us, rather than a portrait, a sum of details and of riches in the style of a
HERMÈS: pamphlet – a genial pamphlet, that is – on fashion, its practices and crafts. Like Voltaire’s hero
International Press Office Candide, he invites us to be surprised.
Ina Delcourt
24, Faubourg Saint Honoré
75008 Paris Olivier Saillard (born 1967) is currently director of the Musée Galliera, the City of Paris cos-
acatineau@hermes.com tume museum. A renowned historian of fashion, he has curated many successful exhibitions,
Tel.: +33 (0) 1 40 17 48 07 including Madame Grès, la couture à l’oeuvre (Musée Bourdelle) Christian Lacroix, histoires
de mode, Yohji Yamamoto, juste des vêtements, Sonia Rykiel, Exhibition, Couturiers
Superstars (all at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs) and Andy Warhol et la mode (Musée de la
Mode, Marseille).