Jean-Louis Robert Frédéric Dumas (2 February 1938 – 1 May 2010) was a French billionaire businessman who was the chairman of the

Hermès Hermès International S.A., or simply Hermès ( , ), is a French luxury design house established in 1837. It specializes in leather goods, lifestyle accessories, home furnishings, perfumery, jewelry, watches and ready-to-wear. Its logo, since ...

group from 1978 to 2006. He was also the company's artistic director. Dumas is credited with turning Hermès into a global

luxury brand In economics, a luxury good (or upmarket good) is a good for which demand increases more than what is proportional as income rises, so that expenditures on the good become a greater proportion of overall spending. Luxury goods are in contrast to n ...

during his tenure as chairman.

Early life and education

Jean-Louis Robert Frédéric Dumas was born in

Paris, France Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

, on 2 February 1938. He also used the last name Dumas-Hermès. His father was Robert Dumas, and his mother was one of Émile-Maurice Hermès' four daughters. Dumas' grandfather Émile-Maurice Hermès had been a grandson of the company founder

Thierry Hermès Thierry Hermès (10 January 1801 – 10 January 1878) was a French businessman who founded Hermès International and acquired the title as a fashion house designer. He was born in 1801 in Krefeld, Germany. Hermès originally established his busin ...

. Dumas attended the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris, also dubbed Sciences Po. He also traveled in Iran, Afghanistan, and Nepal in a

Citroën 2CV The Citroën 2CV (french: link=no, deux chevaux(-vapeur), , lit. "two steam horse(power)s", meaning "two ''taxable'' horsepower") is an air-cooled front-engine, front-wheel-drive, economy family car, introduced at the 1948 Paris Mondial d ...

. After travelling in Scandinavia and Czechoslovakia while the drummer of a

jazz ensemble A jazz band (jazz ensemble or jazz combo) is a musical ensemble that plays jazz music. Jazz bands vary in the quantity of its members and the style of jazz that they play but it is common to find a jazz band made up of a rhythm section and a ho ...

, Dumas was sent to Algeria to perform his compulsory military service.

Career

In 1963, Dumas entered

Bloomingdale's Bloomingdale's Inc. is an American luxury department store chain; it was founded in New York City by Joseph B. and Lyman G. Bloomingdale in 1861. A third brother, Emanuel Watson Bloomingdale, was also involved in the business. It became a div ...

buyer-trainer program in New York. In 1964, he joined Hermès, which his family had founded in 1837. Dumas later became CEO of the Hermès Group and served as the company's artistic director. His father died in 1978, and Dumas became chairman. Expanding into the United States and Asia, he turned Hermès into a global brand after taking in the chairmanship, adding interests in fashion designer

Jean-Paul Gaultier Jean Paul Gaultier (; born 24 April 1952) is a French haute couture and prêt-à-porter fashion designer. He is described as an " enfant terrible" of the fashion industry and is known for his unconventional designs with motifs including corset ...

and the Leica camera maker to the company. In the 1980s Gaultier was working on fashion design in Paris, with Belgian designer

Martin Margiela Martin Margiela (born 9 April 1957) is a Belgian fashion designer, artist, and founder of French luxury fashion house Maison Margiela. Throughout his career, Margiela has maintained a low profile, refusing to grant face-to-face interviews o ...

working as his design assistant from 1984 to 1987. He took the company public in 1993, with around 3/4 of the company remaining family-owned. Jean Louis-Dumas retired as the chairman and artistic director of Hermès in January 2006 due to declining health. He was replaced in the position by his son

Pierre-Alexis Dumas Pierre-Alexis Dumas (born 4 June 1966) is the artistic director of Hermès. Under his direction, the firm has seen its biggest growth in decades, with sales of 4 billion euros in 2014. Early life and education Dumas' father was Jean-Louis Dumas (1 ...

Family and death

His wife Rena Dumas (née Gregoriadès) (1937–2009) was a Greek-born architect who founded Rena Dumas Architecture Intérieure in 1972 in Paris.Suzy Menkes, "Rena Dumas:Interior Design with a Soft Touch of Simplicity: from Greece, a Heritage of Light, ''The New York Times'', 12 September 2000 They married in 1962.

is their son,William Grimes,
Jean-Louis Dumas, Chief of Hermès, Dies at 72
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', 3 May 2010 while their daughter Sandrine is a film actress. Jean-Louis Dumas died in Paris on 1 May 2010, at the age of 72. He took photographs throughout his life, and in 2008,

Steidl Steidl is a German-language publisher, an international publisher of photobooks, and a printing company, based in Göttingen, Germany. It was started in 1968 by Gerhard Steidl and is still run by him. Overview The company was started by Ger ...

published ''Jean-Louis Dumas: Photographer'', a collection of his photographs.

Early life and education

Career

Family and death

References

Further reading