Hermès, the Grand Tour of the frescoes starts from Padua

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The first issue of 2022 of the Harvard Business Review has launched an appeal to the American business and financial world: Get more companies to give back, which we could translate as “let’s make sure that more and more listed companies pay attention to social sustainability”. In Europe and in particular in the high-end sector, the appeal of the Harvard Business School magazine is superfluous: the idea of ​​giving back has been rooted for decades in the culture of many companies, primarily Italian or operating in Italy.

The latest example in chronological order comes from Hermès, who two days ago “returned” one of the most famous frescoes in the city to Padua, The Annunciation of the Virgin Mary with the archangel Gabriel by the fifteenth-century artist Jacopo da Montagnana. The restoration began on October 18, 2021, as part of the Grand Tour of the frescoes initiative, conceived by the maison for Italy. “We are a French company, but our country is strategic for several reasons – explains Francesca Di Carrobbio, managing director of Hermès Italy and Greece -: Italy is an important market and we have many agreements with artisan and manufacturing companies. But there is a more immaterial affinity and for this reason even more profound, which arises from the love for beauty, the one we find in frescoes and in the art and science of restoration ». Taking care of every intellectual work or fruit of the skilled hands of people is a priority of Hermès, which has always associated the idea of ​​luxury with that of durability.

“In this project, however, there is not only the parallel between the care of a work of art and the desire to make a Hermès bag or other object last over time, protecting it from the wear and tear of time and repairing it when necessary – he adds. ‘ad of Hermès -. The Grand Tour of the frescoes involved the employees, who had the opportunity to work side by side with the restorers and the same will happen in the next stages, in Naples this year, in Rome in 2023 and then in other Italian cities “. The fresco restored in Padua is located in the porticoes of Palazzo Angeli and Hermès employees and collaborators had the opportunity to learn more about the technique used to create a fresco, but also to carry out a restoration, which always starts from diagnostic investigations on the state in which the work pays, in turn necessary to outline the phases of the intervention. «With the Grand Tour of the frescoes we want to stimulate the awareness of being part of an economy of beauty – concludes Francesca Di Carrobbio -. Hermès Italia aims to create a new active and concrete social responsibility on the part of citizens and therefore of the company, which is why we promote targeted and highly educational initiatives, which educate them to open up to the world, to pass on manual skills and skills “.

The full 2021 results will be announced on February 18: in the first nine months of last year, Hermès revenues, 6.6 billion, grew by 40% on 2020 and 35% on 2019.