Moynat’s Ramesh Nair on the lasting power of craftsmanship
Ahead of the opening of Moynat’s second boutique in Singapore, artistic director Ramesh Nair gives us his two cents on what luxury really means and why exceptional craftsmanship will always be the beating heart of the French brand.
What was the first thing you set out to accomplish when you joined Moynat in 2011?
Ramesh Nair (RN): I really did not set out to accomplish anything. I let it flow. It’s a bit like when you sing, a lot of people clear their throats before they let go. I had an idea of what the brand should look like. It’s a bit like harmony. You start by humming a tune and then you bring in some people who play different instruments, and it ends up becoming a song. In my case, the different instruments were my artisans, the people who came up with different techniques which put the whole thing together.
Why do you place so much importance on having an archive?
RN: If you put it back into what I was saying about music, the archives are your notes. If you don’t have these notes, you cannot make your tune, your harmony. If I had to work on something, I needed to know maybe a bit about its past or about what it represented at that point of time.
What are the biggest challenges that you’ve faced from reviving Moynat?
RN: Finding craftsmen and the right people. Across many areas, the standard of quality and levels of refinement have gone down. My first biggest problem was where do I get people who even understand the language I’m speaking? I struggled for the first couple of months because I was trying to talk to people about craftsmanship and making something beautiful, but it was impossible. I would go to tanneries, ask for certain things–impossible. That was the biggest challenge.
How has your experience at Hermès shaped the way you work?
RN: Hermès gives you a bar of how high or low you are, where you stand on the line. If you just draw a bar in terms of luxury and good materials, Hermès’ bar is up there. As a crazy person would think, you want to break the barriers and you want to go higher than that.
How do you define luxury?
RN: It’s a stupid word. There’s nothing about luxury that is luxurious because you can walk into a bathroom and find a tap that says “Luxury Fittings”. When you’ve taken it to that level, there’s no luxury. I would say that Moynat makes beautiful things with interesting materials. I would call it more of a well-made, honest brand.
What sets Moynat apart from other luxury leather goods houses?
RN: A huge part of what we do is without compromise. We try and not compromise at all. There are areas which you have to comprise such as reasons of not having an availability of something. We make bags using the best materials and we try to get the best out of craftsmanship, but we also innovate much more than most brands. We have taken it to a level where something as simple as the edge painting of our bags takes up a lot of time. Everything has been taught and retaught.
Exceptional savoir-faire has always been at the heart of Moynat; do you think the advancement of technology will affect this in any way?
RN: I remember when, about three of four years back, Apple was launching their watch and everybody said Swiss watches were finished. Now, the Swiss watches are climbing even higher than they have before. True craftsmanship will never die. If it did, we are not meant to be hanging around.
This article was written by Pameyla Cambe and first published in L’Officiel Singapore’s August 2018 issue.