The Artisan's Paradox
It's a curious truth: In a world dominated by mass production, the finest handmade goods often cost less than their factory-made counterparts.
The Artisan’s Paradox
By , Publisher and Editor-in-Chief
In the decade I’ve spent publishing our magazine, Craftsmanship, I have been repeatedly struck by a bizarre paradox: The finest handmade goods often cost less than their mass-produced counterparts. And in case after case, the handmade version is not only more distinctive, sometimes even customized, it also generally outlasts its glitzy bastard cousins, usually for generations to come.
Look around, and you’ll find that this odd rule applies, in one form or another, to all sorts of consumer goods. Just in our archives, you can see it in artisanal shops that make everything from jewelry and leather bags to shoes, hats, and perfume. Not surprisingly, this mismatch between price and quality frustrates more than a few artisans, who toil away at their benches year after year, hoping that enough enlightened consumers are still out there to keep their businesses afloat.
The cost-to-value contradiction is particularly bizarre in jewelry, as can be seen by the unusual line of rings, pendants, bracelets, and other adornments made in a little shop in Harrisonburg, Virginia, by Hugo Kohl.
The bracelet above sells for a mere $220 (if in silver; when made in gold or platinum, the price makes quite a jump, to more than $13,000). Still, a brand like Tiffany’s sells equivalent items at four or five times the price—for pieces with much simpler designs. More important, most of Tiffany’s jewelry, like that of its modern peers, is cast in wax, which creates jewelry that isn’t nearly as durable as Kohl’s. The reason is that Kohl shapes his jewelry with a metal hub and matching die, an early 20th-century method that’s virtually extinct. This process hammers and hardens the jewelry, leaving a design that not only can stand the test of time, but can also be more refined than wax-caste jewelry.
It kinda makes you wonder: Why do so many people think new technologies always mean progress?
Another, more subtle side of the artisan’s dilemma is evident in the world of fine leather goods. Consider the contrast between two lines of women’s handbags—one made by Beatrice Amblard in her San Francisco shop, April in Paris, and that of the luxury handbag giant, Hermès.
Amblard, who is French, learned her trade decades ago, working for Hermès from 1983 to 1997. So her women’s handbags, and those from Hermès, share many of the same qualities and aesthetics.
But that’s where the similarities end.
First comes price: Amblard’s bespoke handbags (when they’re not sold out) range from $1,600 to around $8,000. Equivalent bags from Hermès can cost twice that much, and those in highest demand sometimes auction for well over $100,000.
Now come the hidden differences: how the two ateliers’ bags are made. During Amblard’s stint at Hermès, she learned a special method of leather stitching that has distinguished Hermès bags almost since the company’s founding, in 1837. The technique is called a “saddle stitch,” and it can only be done by hand.
First inspired by the rugged demands of the horse-and-buggy era, saddle-stitching involves a kind of double-stitch. The labor required to pull this off creates a contoured cascade of waxed stitches. These are not only pleasing to the eye, they’re also much stronger—and more reparable—than the flat, unwaxed row of “hooked” stitches that sewing machines make.
The photo below—a closeup of a pocket in a wallet that Amblard made—shows the finished saddle stitch, and its solid condition after a decade of heavy wear.
Hermès artisans still do plenty of hand-stitching—in the same manner, and with the same tools, that Amblard uses. But the company has long used the saddle stitch only selectively. According to various internet sites, most Hermès bags are partly stitched with sewing machines. This reality, which I confirmed with several Hermès employees, is also visible to a discerning eye when examining any Hermès bag.
Interestingly, Hermès’ partial reliance on sewing machines contrasts sharply with the image the company likes to project. A prime example of this spin occurred just recently, in a December 2024, 60 Minutes segment, where the show’s correspondent fawned over the company’s claims—accompanied by scenes showing only hand-stitching—that Hermès has strictly held to its pure, saddle-stitched traditions.
Despite its careful image curation, in today’s fashion world as a whole, Hermès still emerges as a hero—of both craftsmanship and value. In recent years, as the product quality of Hermès goods has held steady, its price increases have not much exceeded the rate of inflation. Meanwhile, other luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Prada, and others have been pilloried in the press for aggressively hiking prices, sometimes nearly doubling what they were a few years ago, while also skimping on quality. Chanel has been a favorite target—for getting quality complaints on a leather flap bag, after raising its price from $5,800 in 2019 to $10,800 today.
How can this be? In a world where the price of labor steadily rises, why would an item that comes from days and days of handmade care cost less than what Chanel and Tiffany pop out of a production line?
The answer lies in what we, as consumers, have done to our own retail market. The importance our society has increasingly put on wealth, status, and materialism—continually stoked by social media—has turned us into a nation of insatiables. The result is a kind of brand popularity bubble.
The pattern is nothing new. In an 1899 book entitled “The Theory of the Leisure Class,” the economist Thorstein Veblen described how luxury markets fuel their own price hikes, leading him to famously coin the term “conspicuous consumption.” Echoing Veblen, Hugo Kohl described the paradox this way: “In the luxury marketplace, brands have a distorted demand curve where high prices create greater demand.”
The runaway prices have been exacerbated by today’s unfettered corporate mergers, which have consolidated many luxury brands into unstoppable mega-brands. A prime example is Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy, an $80-billion-a-year conglomerate that now owns 60 subsidiaries that manage 75 different luxury brands. Today, LVMH owns so much of the luxury market, in so many different sectors, that, in Kohl’s view, the company “acts as a market maker.” Meanwhile, he says, he is stuck living in a “traditional marketplace where higher prices discourage demand.”
What do all these paradoxical forces boil down to for an artisan like Amblard? “Hermes can charge prices for their handbags that I can’t even dream about.”
The Craft Emergency Relief Fund (CERF), based in Vermont, has opened up its emergency grants program for L.A.-based artists and craftspeople affected by the fires. Please visit their website for details on how to apply.
And, here’s a running list of other wildfire resources and emergency assistance for artists on Hyperallergic.
ICYMI...
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A master woodworker and furniture maker discusses whether technology helps or hinders us in the creation of beautiful things—and what it takes to become a master in his trade.
Craftsmanship Magazine focuses on master artisans and innovators whose work informs our quest: to create a world built to last. In addition to our Substack offerings, you’ll find a rich archive of stories, podcasts, photo essays, and documentary shorts on our free website—along with community resources like our Artisans’ Directory, our guide to U.S.-based craft & folk schools, and much more.
https://substack.com/@accordingtoexpert/note/p-159627310?r=4uipjv