Patrick Guerrand-Hermès

The name Hermès summons up a promise somewhere between refinement, delicacy, distinction, and subtlety. In terms of ambition Patrick Guerrand-Hermès, Guerrand from his father - Jean-René, and Hermès from his mother Aline’s side – was never satisfied with just toeing the line, his intense blue eyes full of life and natural elegance seem to have magnified it instead. Friendly and full of good will, he welcomes us amiably and simply, calling to mind the tenets that shaped the famous House of Couture and fashion accessories founded by his great-grandfather Thierry, in 1837. In those days, the Hermès International company specialized in the manufacture of harnesses for horses.

This is not an anomaly. The horse is still at the centre of Patrick Guerrand-Hermès’s life, and he still takes a lead role. But before becoming a horseman, Patrick was markedly a child of war. Born in Paris in 1932, to a family of Normandy origin, he was inevitably affected by the World War (1939-1945). “To say that I was traumatized is too strong,” he confides. "Time has moved on but the fear stays with you, the memories of third-class travel in the nets above the carriages, the iron bars that dug into your ribs, your mother’s voice scolding you to be quiet, for fear the Germans would open the door without warning.”

He also has anecdotes from his time with the Citroën family in Mantes where Patrick and his family took refuge. “When the Germans walked in, they wanted to take over this beautiful house with the swimming pool and golf course, my mother asked us to gather up the children and stuffed animals all together in our arms to give the impression that there were 20 of us living together when we were only 12.” The Germans turned away, and the Hermès family left on the road to Paris. "My father thought it was less dangerous..." says Patrick, who from Avenue Foch, witnessed the liberation of the capital first hand. He remembers the tanks from the 2nd Armoured Division and the Parisians who became turncoats overnight. "By the time of the Liberation, everyone had become Resistant," he says. “We knew some people, who immediately put on the Resistance armband but who had been eating ham all through the war for some reason.” 

_ Patrick Guerrand-Hermès never let the experience define him. He is neither naive nor vengeful, preferring to focus the memory of the incredible unity in the Hermès family. “I like to think about my grandparents who were very loving, tender and generous,” he confides, and to plunge himself into his aspiring passion for horses that has remained with him until today. His father, Jean-René Guerrand-Hermès was not only a perfumer, a talented and recognized nose, he had also been cadet at the cavalry school of Saumur. He took his son to the Polo de Paris, at Aoulette in the Avenue de Neuilly. The trainer there, who also worked for the Rothschild family, encouraged him to seriously take up horse riding to become a good polo player. He might have had in mind one of the sayings of the great British war-time Prime Minister Winston Churchill who thought that: “The best ranking to open up to the world is a good ranking in polo.” Patrick proceeded to open up to the world especially gastronomically. After the riding sessions, Jean-René Guerrand Hermès never missed the opportunity to stop-off at Jarrase, the culinary institution on Avenue de Madrid, in Neuilliy-sur-Seine, with his son to enjoy a platter of oysters. 

Patrick-Guerrand Hermès is still not ranked in polo, but he seems to have wrung the best out of life and the world. The ambition for this came from his parents. He received a Protestant education where the tenets of work and effort were an unwavering foundation. It wasn’t austere but might come across as such. He learned English at Copenhagen in Denmark then graduated from the legendary Oxford University, situated to the Northwest of London. He travelled through Germany while it was still in a terrible state of ruin. And then hopped a boat to the United States from the port of Tunis. But it was by no means a cruise, it was a pain! "My father made me work on the boat as a sailor," he recalls. “It was mostly character building; we were taught to deserve what we had. Remember by the time France was Liberated, everyone was financially ruined, including the Rothschild family, even they had to rebuild their empire. Despite all this my parents were wonderful. Mum had an infinite source of maternal affection and my dad, in the reflective sense, shaped my character. » 

Landing in Miami, in southern Florida, Patrick took a bus to Dallas along with all the working middle-class Americans. "I was raised without much money in my pockets on purpose, so that it wouldn't go to my head, unlike the children of other large families who were used to opulence," explains Patrick Guerrand-Hermès. “We had a rich heritage but didn’t necessarily have that much money. And of course, the war hadn't helped matters." The fantastic American trip between Florida and Texas stretched over two long days, but Dallas was worth it! Patrick was welcomed there by a doctor who had put together a polo team. Very quickly, he started playing amongst the derricks, those huge metal towers that support the oil well drilling equipment. “I lived between the horses' legs,” says PGH. “Horse dung was like holy bread to me. My maternal uncle taught me the rigor of riding skills and to have respect for the horse. I owe him a lot. I have ridden horses all my life and even now, I try to ride every day.” 

Patrick Guerrand-Hermès returned to Paris ingrained with a passion for the equestrian sport, but with nothing in his pockets. "I didn't have enough money to play polo," he confesses. “I could only ride the training horses at 7 a.m. in Chantilly.” But by frequenting Jimmy’s, the fashionable Parisian nightclub of his youth, Patrick formed a routine. He would leave the club on Boulevard Montparnasse at 6:30am sharp to go straight to Chantilly. "I journeyed that route between Jimmy's and Chantilly so many times in my Renault 4," PGH reminisces. “It took 28 minutes, not one minute more. If I arrived at 7:02 a.m., I gave myself a telling off.” 

The rigour of the horse-riding world would be very apparent at Bayeux, in Normandy with Emeric Couperie-Eiffel, who was a true show jumping specialist and at Maisons Laffitte, in the Yvelines, with Jean-François Mathet, one of the greatest racehorse trainers in the world. “I had to get up at 5 a.m. to get to Bayeux where the Couperie family were,” recalls Patrick. “A bourgeois kid like me wasn’t going to break down or start getting upset. I would be too embarrassed. But if Dad doesn't gift you a Corvette and the horse is okay, you make do with what you’ve got and what you hadn’t already spent at the disco. I did do lots of horse-back events, but the winner only took home 222 francs.” 

It bears a name that is in the history of France and in the hearts of fashion lovers all over the world. His simplicity and sensitivity are his signature and the key to his success in the business world at the head of the Hermès Group and in sport at the helm of the International Polo Federation. Meeting with Patrick Guerrand-Hermès, a man to whom life has given a lot and taken a lot too. 

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They had first met in Deauville, during a Selle Français auction. The champion recommended a horse to Patrick Guerrand-Hermès who made a bid for it and won. "The horse was called Etna" recalls Marcel Rozier. “He was fantastic. For a long time, I even regretted not buying it myself.” This horse was a great source of joy to Lionel Guerrand Hermès, Patrick's eldest son, who observers had pegged for a great international career. With this mount, the young rider participated in the European Junior Championships. "Marcel knows how to detect the value of a horse better than anyone" assures PGH. “He is a great character in the equestrian world. He is a man of infinite imagination. I have seen him share his knowledge and expertise a thousand times over. But, like great chefs, he keeps the best advice for himself. These are the details that make the difference and gain those decisive seconds between obstacles. The Rozier family were an ordinary French family, touching with their rural generosity, kindness, and tenderness.” 

Patrick and Marcel met again a few months later in the rural setting of the Château du Vaudreuil Park (Eure) where an international junior show jumping competition was taking place that had been organized by Anne Raoul Duval and Patrick Guerrand-Hermès. "The competition had quickly gained worldwide attention," says Marcel Rozier. “Patrick is a man who acts and speaks from his heart. The obstacle course sponsored by Hermès was magnificent. Moreover, it was Patrick who lent the image of equestrian sports to the House of Hermès.” 

Inevitably, the professional life of Patrick Guerrand-Hermès is defined by the eponymous luxury House which he directed for ten years in the 1980s. His grandfather Emile-Maurice Hermès appointed him as his successor. "I did not know how to keep the crown, but it was an exciting ten years" PGH ponders. “I’ve been lucky to belong to an exceptional family with expert craftsmanship, and manual trade skills that became recognized at the highest level worldwide.” The harness and saddle factory became a luxury house of leather goods, ready-to-wear and perfumery.  

The Founder Émile-Maurice Hermès’s sons-in-law accentuated this transformation: Jean René Guerrand, Patrick’s father, and Robert Dumas. The first developed the perfume division, while the second was the craftsman behind the success of the leather goods and scarves. The two men pursued the development of the company by merging the quest for quality with flashes of creativity. In the 1930s, Robert Dumas had the genius to pull the ladies' bag with straps out of his hat. In the late 1950s, it caused a sensation when Grace Kelly, Hollywood Star turned Princess of Monaco, was photographed using the bag to conceal the first curves of her pregnancy. 

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The legendary Hermès Kelly handbag was born. As Patrick Guerrand-Hermès divulges this chic and romantic story he tells us, “Grace Kelly was one of the most endearing people I ever met in my life,” says PGH. “She was carried by a kind of American-style charity. I had invited her to a Spanish horse show at the Etrier club in Paris. She came along with patients from the Princess Grace Hospital Centre. She was helping disabled people to walk, at 7am in the morning. Her commitment was strengthened by sincerity. She was wonderful.” 

Under the chairmanship of Patrick Guerrand-Hermès, the Group experienced incredible international development and specialized in silk. "We opened Hermès boutiques in London, Tokyo and then all over the world," says PGH, who handed the management of the business to his cousin Jean-Louis Dumas. “He was so smart, brilliant, attractive, modern,” he says. "I didn't want to conflict or compete with him. “Nevertheless, Patrick Guerrand-Hermès still throws his undeniable weight behind the Group’s development in the context of family shareholder meetings. "I'm obviously very happy with the development of the brand," says Patrick. “My nephews are very attentive to the well being of their employees and respect the family traditions”.  

Even if Patrick is no longer on the board of directors - "It was I who imposed the rule of the obligation to be under 70 to participate in the board of directors" -, he is still involved, like his mother Aline, who was Vice-Chairman of the Management Board of Emile Hermès SARL until she was 98 years old. She contributed until the end of her life in the Hermès alumni club events that she created, lending them her presence and imagination. 

Since 2012, Patrick Guerrand-Hermès has been manoeuvring, on two legs now, between France and Morocco where he spends nine months a year. Morocco did not come into his life by accident, it was destiny. First, he did military service in the 4th regiment of Moroccan spahis, a cavalry unit dependent on the French Army. Then later, in Dallas, he met Prince Moulay Abdellah, the youngest son of His Majesty King Mohammed V. "I was invited to a ball in Washington by the Guess brothers who were great polo players," PGH tells us, “After about thirty kilometres, my fuel ran out and I didn’t have enough money on me to buy some more. I suggested to Prince Moulay Abdellah that he should sell his gold cufflinks to help us out!”  

And the rest of the day was just as incredible. The ball was teeming with great personalities, not least of which was John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the youngest elected president of the United States. The man nicknamed Jack was delighted to talk to a Moroccan Prince. “They spent the whole evening together” recalls Patrick. “Kennedy asked a lot of questions about the colonization of African countries. In the purest American tradition, he was opposed to any influence of one country over another. Prince Moulay Abdellah told me later that it was one of the best evenings of his life.” 

On his return to Morocco, the Prince recounted his incredible trip to the United States in detail, to his brother His Majesty Hassan II. "I was then invited to all the events organized by the Royal Palace," says Patrick Guerrand-Hermès, who later showed the young Prince Mohammed VI around the Hermès workshops in the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, at the Sovereign's request. "Morocco gave me memories of great friendship," says Patrick. He mentions, with tears in his eyes, in a frozen moment of unfeigned emotion, Princess Lalla Fatima Zohra, the eldest daughter of King Mohammed V and Prime Minister Abdellatif Filali (1994-1998). "He came to take refuge with me, he told me everything, I never talk about it," Patrick recalls. He also remembers the rider, Hamid Abdelhamid. "He knew horses like no one in the world," he says admiringly..  

He eventually settled in Morocco with his wife Martine Borgeaud. In the 1980s the couple redecorated the Aïn Kassimou in Marrakech, a villa built for Leo Tolstoy's daughter. In terms of decoration, he satisfied his passion for oriental arts. Above all, the house is the ideal place for official visits. “The Palais Royal used us as an extra dining room on the second day of visits by political figures” confirms PGH, who remembers the good nature of Jacques Chirac and the snobbery of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. “It was a very lively period, more fun than being an accountant in Deauville”. 

Though still infinitely less captivating than a polo match: Patrick Guerrand-Hermès installed two fields in the Marrakech property that were separated by a mud wall that his son Mathias enjoyed jumping over. “He invented jumping polo,” smiles PGH. His Majesty was a regular visitor: he came through the back door. The children of the village were in heaven: Coca-cola was handed out free. They admired their idol, the talented Mathias Guerrand-Hermès and regularly chanted his name. “In Marrakech, we managed to create social ties and draw the interest of children from the neighbouring villages” PGH enthuses. "In Asilah, it's much harder..." 

When he decided to sell the villa in Marrakech and leave the Ochre City, Patrick Guerrand-Hermès opted for northern Morocco. “His Majesty Hassan II left me no choice,” he smiles. “He asked me to move to Larache where he moved his horses in the summer. During a landing at Tangier airport, PGH discovered a deserted beach. It was there, in the middle of nowhere, in this temple of silence, that he built the PGH Palmeraie Polo Club, in Rehouna, facing the Atlantic Ocean, between Asilah and Larache. Putting the Tangier region on the world polo map. Between white sand beaches, dunes and exotic landscapes, the area has three polo fields, a daily training track, a club house, paddocks... "The club is like Patrick" says Marcel Rozier who attended the inauguration places, in 2018. “He doesn’t seek to impress he simply expresses his passion.” 

The penchant for polo, between 2000 and 2009, elevated him to the Presidency of the International Polo Federation (FIP), in Beverly Hills, at the gates of Los Angeles. And at the headquarters of the FIP, Patrick Guerrand-Hermès was faced with storms on a daily basis. "During those nine years, I came across jealousy I never experienced elsewhere," says PGH. “The American Polo Federation had taken umbrage at our offensive strategy for the international development of polo. Even in the business of world with Hermès, I never experienced such a race between interests. Yet, the idea should be not to self serve, but to serve the sport.”

This did not prevent him from successfully organizing the 2004 World Polo Championship at the Polo Club du Domaine du Château de Chantilly, over which he had presided since the early 1970s. Old polo players are stubborn… With its history - Louis XVI organized the first thoroughbred horse race in Chantilly -, its unique location, its ten polo fields, its 300 players and its 4,000 horses in training, the club has little to envy over Palermo, the famous club in Buenos Aires or the Guards Polo Club, located in the grounds of Windsor Castle, to the west of London. Above all, Patrick Guerrand-Hermès has managed to break the regional roots of polo and give it global visibility. "Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have become the new cradles of polo," enthuses this great leader. “The passion in Middle Eastern countries for the sport is great news. It's a note of hope that polo will survive because getting the public interested is very complicated. It is up to these countries to create events like the Palermo Open final in Buenos Aires.” 

In the United Arab Emirates, Patrick Guerrand-Hermès is on familiar ground. During his mandate at the head of the FIP, each year in Abu Dhabi he attended the general assembly of the Emirati federation chaired by Sheikh Falah Bin Zayed. He is also familiar with Dubai, which he visited for the first time in… 1958! At the time, Dubai was a modest city whose traditional way of life was based on cattle breeding, date harvesting and pearl fishing. “There were two buildings, one building with four floors, the other with three floors,” recalls PGH. “I went to Dubai to buy gold bracelets for our jewellery range. There was a gold crisis in Europe. “He would later go back many times, would meet and forge friendships, particularly with Ali Albwardy, whom he met in 1958. “Ali is the owner of the Dubai Polo Country Club, which hosts the Cartier International Polo Challenge every year” specifies Patrick. “He was also a professional player with remarkable talent and charisma.” And obviously, PGH is not insensitive to the phenomenal success of the Hermès boutique at the Dubai Mall.

In any case, his experience as the head of the International Polo Federation never caused him to regret keeping away from politics despite the requests of the former President of the Republic Georges Pompidou. "I have no doubt I was asked because of my name, my network and my influence" confirms Patrick Guerrand-Hermès. “You must realise the world was quite a small place. In New York, 7,000 people ran the city, in Paris it’s 3,000 and in Rabat 200. Sure, I knew a lot of them.” In France, he is familiar with 80% of the government, "the others are the ones I didn't like" espouses the man who never hides his admiration for President De Gaulle. His grandmother Julie Hollande, a great resistance fighter, was one of the General's most fervent supporters. Julie and Patrick went to Cannes, in 1958, to attend a meeting for the candidate for the presidential election. And as the General loved the tradition of the Maison Hermès in general and his own silk scarf in particular, the respect was deep. 

Patrick Guerrand-Hermès prefers sport to political contests. In the aftermath of his 90th birthday, he has no complaints about that... "A life under the sign of sport guarantees a better balance for maintaining health" he certifies. "If at 90, I'm still here ranting, it's probably thanks to the discipline, the lifestyle. We pay attention to what we eat, we don’t have that one last drink. These are not sacrifices, it is done naturally.”   

Like death. Of which he is not afraid, even if it has been too apparent in his life stealing the love of two sons from him, the worst drama for a dad. A double red-hot iron injury: Lionel victim of a tragic road accident at the age of 18 and Mathias, unfairly taken following a heart attack at the age of 38. A raw double tragedy that never subsides. “You are the first to ask me the question” he admits. “Thank you for bringing the subject up. This question is fundamental. No, I'm not afraid of death. It’s prowling out there, not far away. It’s already waved at me. I lost two children and a granddaughter. I am Protestant. I am a believer, but I have questions. I believe in the similarity of religions. I live with Muslims who pray five times a day. It makes them better humans. I had a great friendship with Abdellatif Filali. We were so close. It would have been ill-intentioned to find a spiritual conflict between us.” 

When the time comes for his last journey, he will call on tradition. This is the story of his life. “Our old grandparents church will be perfect. I do not necessarily imagine a service, only hymn music. At least I won’t be talking crap.”