A few months later, Chavez came home to a letter on the table welcoming him to Princeton’s class of 1977. While at Luther Burbank High School, where he would graduate as valedictorian, a guidance counselor named John Buhay urged him to consider applying to Ivy League schools. The middle of three boys, Chavez dreamed of being a third-grade teacher. boutiques and boasted revenue for the Americas of about $1.5 billion in 2021, according to the company.Īs a child on San Antonio’s South Side, leading a global fashion brand was not on Chavez’s short list of things to be when he grew up. During Chavez’s tenure, Hermès has added twenty U.S.
He’s led Hermès’s North and South American entities-Hermès USA and Hermès Latin America-through the past two decades, including the retail roller coaster that was 2020. But the naysayers could not temper the general excitement, and shoppers spent the first week waiting for hours to get a peek at the store, bringing snacks and camping chairs and creating a line that rivals the one at Franklin Barbecue.Īfter more than forty years in the fashion industry, Chavez knows what resonates with consumers. A luxury brand that sells $69 lipsticks and $950 scarves in a city battling an affordability crisis had some locals pointing to its arrival as the death of “old Austin” (again). Resonate it has, though reactions to the store’s arrival have been mixed. “We think it will resonate really well with the people here.” “We think it’s a great way for us to expand awareness and to introduce the brand and everything we represent: the quality, the craftsmanship, the stories,” Chavez says. After finding success in Houston and Dallas-and noticing that Central Texas shoppers were traveling to those boutiques-the iconic French fashion house zeroed in on a prime corner of the trendy SoCo strip to hang its Birkin bags. It’s partially because of that change, however, that Hermès selected Austin for the company’s third Texas store. Today is not the day to risk a dollop of salsa or dribble of chorizo. Chavez is wearing a bespoke Hermès suit for the occasion, lined with one of the brand’s iconic silk-scarf prints and accented with the aforementioned tie. But tonight is Hermès’s grand opening party, an invitation-only affair featuring a cocktail reception and a formal seated dinner for two hundred guests off-site (on the locally themed menu: golden beet salad, Gulf red snapper, and a Texas olive oil). The 67-year-old Chavez showed great restraint in passing up one of the best breakfast tacos in Austin-and as a native of San Antonio, he certainly knows what makes for a good breakfast taco. “ ‘You’re going to get grease all over you!’ ” “I actually slowed down and thought, ‘No, you cannot buy a chorizo-and-egg taco and eat it walking over the bridge,’ ” he says with a laugh. It’s a Friday morning in late April, and Robert Chavez has just walked from his hotel in downtown Austin to the luxury brand’s new boutique on South Congress Avenue, passing the Veracruz All Natural taco window along the way. The president and CEO of Hermès Americas wants a chorizo-and-egg taco but is worried about spilling it on his silk tie.
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