style101 said:Lilach - The information I have compliments yours, but expands on it just a little, so I thought I'd add it. This was explained to me at length by a manager who was with Hermes for 12 years and at YSL for 3:
The ostrich that Hermes and YSL uses are actually from the exact same farm in South Africa. However, what usually occurs is that Hermes goes first and picks and chooses which skins they want to purchase. They make a point of only choosing the finest skins and will turn down any which have for example, a small scratch where the poor ostrich may have accidentally had a nasty run-in with a fence.
YSL then comes and purchases what's left. So while there's no doubt that Hermes' skins are superior (and I'm in complete agreement with that), I wouldn't go so far as to say that the ostrich on the YSL is "subpar". It's the same ostrich - just some which may have small character marks on parts of it and certainly YSL is using far more of the skins than the pristine parts Hermes chooses.
Given the price difference, it makes sense. And please don't think that I don't prefer the Hermes ones, because I do. But for the enormous difference in price between the 2, I also wouldn't say that the YSL ones are awful either - they are extremely soft and lovely in person as well. The manager and I just found it fascinating that a huge piece of virtually the same ostrich give or take some cosmetic flaws was selling for $5000 vs. about $11,000 - $13,000 at Hermes.
What's funny is that even knowing that, I'd happily pay for the Hermes one in a red-hot minute.
Thank you so much Style101! This is very interesting!!! So glad you posted this!