In 1998 he hired as fashion designer Martin Margiela

Jean-Louis Dumas, the former CEO of the Hermes Group, disappeared yesterday at the age of seventy-two of the suites of Parkinson's disease, was able to family business, and its trade mark, the absolute reference of the luxury French. Amateur words and objects as well as figures, he placed above the only imperative of profitability, the search of beauty. This cultivated and malicious man liked to recall this phrase of Henry Ford: "A business that earns that money is much poverty." During the quarter century passed to the head of the Hermes (from 1978 to 2006) Group Jean-Louis Dumas will be guided by three priorities: the meaning of fidelity, almost maniacal attention to quality and taste of innovation.

When it sees the day, in Paris, in 1938, his family is concerned for more than a century to grow the small case founded by his ancestor Thierry Hermès. Fourth child of Robert Dumas, representative of the fourth generation who then runs the business, Jean-Louis is pursuing legal studies and done Sciences po. After a year spent in New York as "assistant buyer" in the Department store Bloomingdale's, it joined the family company in 1964. Deputy Head of the group in 1971, he takes the reins seven years later. The legacy that there is far from being negligible: manufacturer of harnesses and saddles, installed 24 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, successful diversification in leather goods, ready-to-wear, the squares of silk and perfumes. But it is still very low international. Jean-Louis Dumas will tackle deploy its mark everywhere in the world, but betray the spirit.Whether taking risks

Attached to the roots of the company, Jean-Louis Dumas, who was also the artistic director (he war on small black book which did not leave), was not afraid to innovation. Thus he brought Hermes in new trades, such as watchmaking, jewellery and silversmithing. He did not hesitate to make acquisitions, Crystal Saint Louis and silversmith Puiforcat, to preserve their know-how and their very existence. What the lead more later to take a stake in Leica, German manufacturer of cameras. Jean-Louis Dumas knew and loved surprise by unexpected reconciliations. In 1998, he hired as fashion designer Martin Margiela. Quickly, he manages to give a new impetus to the women's ready-to-wear for Hermès, while remaining faithful to the tradition of the House based on precise and clean cuts. The following year, Hermès between 35 in the capital of Jean-Paul Gaultier to then take over the torch of Margiela. In the announcement of the operation, Jean-Louis Dumas appears then draped of the famous creator, Jean-Paul Gaultier with marinade as a Hermes tie! Those who wonder this reconciliation, he responds "partnership of brotherhood and excellence." More prosaically, it explained that the capacity of self-financing of the Group allowed him to take risks and therefore to be wrong.

At his departure in 2006, Patrick Thomas replaced him in command of the group whose artistic director is provided by his son Pierre-Alexis. His daughter, Sandrine, actress and theatre director, excels in the scenography of dinners or celebrations which, each year, gather at the side of management and the members of the family shareholder, employees of the Group and journalists from around the world.