Luxury group LVMH has marked the tenth anniversary of its launch of its Métiers d’Excellence Institute with an event at a cinema in central Paris. By Leatherbiz.

LVMH calls Métiers d’Excellence a pioneering skills training programme through which it aims to preserve and pass on “exceptional know-how” in areas such as leathergoods production.

It said at the Paris event that the programme has now become “the world’s leading private-sector training ecosystem for uniquely skilled professions”. It said that making its products requires 280 different professions, each of them demanding “exceptional savoir-faire”.

More than 800 people attended the event, representing learners, creatives, recruitment teams, partners and business leaders from across the LVMH group.

From a first intake of 27 learners in 2014, this year’s programme showed the expansion that the Métiers d’Excellence initiative has enjoyed with 520 people taking part. These include young people embarking on vocational training but also people with more work experience who are looking for the chance to learn new skills and enter new career paths.

Over the 10 years the programme has run so far, LVMH has trained more than 3,300 apprentices, many of whom have gone on to work for the group’s brands.

“LVMH is deeply committed to preserving these exceptional skills throughout the different regions where we are present, ensuring that they are passed on to new generations, and at the same time actively supporting career-long learning,” said the group’s executive vice-president for human resources, Chantal Gaemperle.