From April 3rd to July 5th, the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès announces a call for applications for the fourth Skills Academy, the Foundation’s major programme devoted to artisan expertise and innovation, centred on a specific raw material. After exploring wood with Patrick Jouin, clay with Guillaume Bardet, and metal with Normal Studio – Jean-François Dingjian and Eloi Chafaï, now the focus is on textiles under programme director industrial designer matali crasset. The 2019 session marks an expansion of the programme’s activities: each new Academy will now incorporate a broader examination of key economic and societal issues connected to the chosen theme.

Held biennially since 2014, the Skills Academy initially convened for a nine-month period (the first three editions) will now be held over eleven months, from January to November.

The Foundation invites applications from artisan textile practitioners (upholsterers and tapestry-makers, weavers, haberdashers, finishers, designers, textile restorers, loom-setters, tailors, embroiderers and more), designers and engineers specialising in textiles and related sectors (chemicals, textile production and mechanics, etc.). The Academy will select twenty French-speaking professionals currently active in France and neighbouring countries: ten artisans, five designers, five engineers.

Each Academy features a calendar of events implemented by the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès

to explore artisan skills and technical innovations in the sector. The programme is designed to enable participants to enrich their knowledge at lectures and masterclasses led by experts in their field, before honing their skills at workshops conceived as an experimental laboratory for new techniques. The Academy combines skills transmission with shared exploration for innovation.

The Fondation d’entreprise Hermès supports men and women seeking to learn, perfect, transmit and celebrate the creative skills that shape our lives today and into the future. The Skills Academy embodies the Foundation’s core mission to support artisans, creative artists and actors in the solidarity sector as they forge new expertise to spearhead change. In consolidating the Academy’s position as one of our foremost programmes, the Foundation reaffirms its commitment promoting exchange between the worlds of design and artisanship.

Applications must be made online through the website of the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès: www.fondationdentreprisehermes.org/en/candidatures