By Antonella Gambotto-Burke

Hermes is in Sydney for its first international showjumping challenge and with it, European weather. The sudden Sunday rains are blown at cold diagonals, and unpredictable chill winds cause female spectators to chase their hats over damp eucalyptus bark and clover. The formal beauty of these grounds is timeless: bay trees in planters, lemon-heaped urns. Facing the Royal Box, the public grandstand and white corporate tents. The rectangular arena is an obstacle course of striped rails arranged in fences of varying heights; from the last one - on which most of the horses will catch their polished hooves - the six white letters of the word “Hermes” judder and swing with every fresh gust.

“High profile business activity,” writes Professor Lisa Jardine, author of Worldly Goods: A New History Of The Renaissance, “[has been transformed] into an enduring prestigious reputation by spending a significant percentage of … profits on commodities which [are] more status symbols than investment.” And so to the aristocratic trappings of the hunt, plaited Hannoverians massaged with linseed oil and practising that sideways trot known as the “Khyber Pass”, Charles Heidsieck champagne, raspberries and cream. This is the world once pilloried by Balzac, Zola, and Alexandre Dumas - a world in which the “rules of etiquette were simple”, chests were “held high” and “gentlemen tipped their hats in a hearty but respectful flourish that was the last word in gallantry”.

The global boom in luxury goods - of which France is a primary producer - has been attributed to various factors, including the stability and strength of the dollar against the yen and deutsche mark, and the growing influence of affluent corporate women eager to reward themselves with beautiful objects. In Australia, there are also cultural issues to consider - the deep longings of the squattocracy and local meritocratic elite for a real pedigree, say, or real frontier greed. “Jordan has tradition and history,” one guest will remarks, “here, there is nothing.”

Originally harnessmakers to the royal courts of Europe, the house of Hermes celebrates and reinforces its elite image by mounting horse shows such as the prestigious Washington International, the Windsor, the Chantilly Prix de Diane, the Goodwood Dressage, the Burleigh, and now the Hermes Challenge. Jean-Louis Dumas-Hermes, the 58-year-old president directeur general of the 4000-strong company and great-great grandson of its founder, is a man who, when describing his spells as a jazz drummer during his youth, will grin and make drumming noises as he plays invisible drumsticks on his knees.

A lawyer, economics graduate, former lieutenant in the French army and self-described “big mouth”, he transformed a 15-outlet family concern into a 260-store listed company, the sales figures of which now exceed $A950 million. It is an achievement made all the more extraordinary when some of its items - the cashmere sleeping bag lined with mink, alligator-skin golf-bag, and ostrich-skin jeans, for example - are considered. Dumas-Hermes has always been astute enough to realize that acceleration creates destabilization which, in turn, creates an appetite for the safety of tradition. And the linchpin of tradition is ritual and its accoutrements.

Between the conception and the creation: sales of rough diamonds from De Beers, the world's biggest producer and distributor of diamonds, are up 8%. Sales of diamonds in Britain have increased by 14% (by 6% in France and the US). The tony Knightsbridge department store, Harrods, last year reported pre-tax profits of USD112.32 million. And then there are the benefits of cultural imperialism to consider.

French foreign minister, Herve de Charette, feels the French economy to be “inadequately represented” in Asia. “The CCIP (Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Paris) is convinced that Asia is a major strategic market for European companies,” he said in October. French luxury goods group, LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy), recently acquired 58.75% of the world's largest luxury goods distributor (DFS, a company with over 180 boutiques in Asia). “Thanks to this acquisition,” LVMH announced, “[we] will increase our presence in the Asia-Pacific region and emerging countries, a future growth area.” Hermes, with 51 sales outlets in Japan alone, is also seeking to expand.

Dwarfed by the armchair in the Sheraton on the Park's Royal Suite, Dumas-Hermes is all hyperbolical alacrity. “I ride more my company than my horses,” he laughs, “but recently, I had to speak at a very interesting symposium about the challenges of globalization, one of them being the disappearance of the horse in our society. Sad, but a fact: the horse is reduced to being a companion for leisure, for gambling, when he was an accomplice for daily life. In the past, a man could be humble, but how proud he was when he returned from the fields riding his horse! I said that if there is a challenge, it is to remember that the horse symbolized an elevation of oneself, because you are not at the same altitude as the others in the street. Altitude! And now it's all about the mo-ped between the bistro and the home where they look at the television.”

It is also all about money. Whilst Middle Eastern potentates can afford to fly silk kites and order the interiors of their jets to be lined with shark or ostrich skin, the average man would have trouble justifying AUD5995 for a (Kelly) handbag, AUD11,995 for a dressage saddle or even AUD315 for one of those scarves so treasured by Queen Elizabeth II. But, as Dumas-Hermes will remind you, the Hermes philosophy is about distinction: the status of beauty, transcendence through expenditure.

A hundred or so metres behind the Royal Box are the rings in which the competitors put the horses “through their paces”. Fragrance of grass and fresh manure. Gilles Bertran de Balanda, former Olympian, is having trouble with his three-quarter thoroughbred, a “skittish” gelding he rode for the first time yesterday. George Sanna, also a former Olympian and son of a Hungarian Olympic champion, sneers from his saddle at parallels drawn between the showjumping crowd and the many “nouveaux”. In his plum-coloured jacket, white breeches, buffed topboots and smiling, he cuts what was once known as “a dashing figure”. “Showjumpers,” he drawls, “are different. We are generally gung-ho brave people, because there is an element of risk involved. I was at a show where two people were killed. You hit the ground often enough. We're not a timid bunch.”

The Japanese guests observing him are timid enough in that they have abandoned the beauty of their cultural dress for uniform First World gentility: pastel haute couture suits, heels, hats burdened by ribbons. In ruins after WWII, the Japanese economy was saved only by the assimilation of the Western corporate ethos.

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With midday, a sudden blast of sunlight and immediate heat. An announcement is made by Colin Turner, the Dublin-born showjumping commentator. The gates to the arena open. Brass hunting horns are played by men wearing breeches and tailcoats. Drumrolls. A marching band precedes the circuit of two open horse-drawn carriages - in the first, Dumas-Hermes and King Hussein's daughter, HRH Princess Haya; in the second, her bodyguard (gold braiding, khaki uniform, moustache, chequered keffiyeh, black akal). From Thailand, Princess Bhajrakitiyabha (in eye-watering purple) and her mother, Princess Soamsawalia courteously manufacture interest in all they see. “Where's the Portaloo??” an unsteady guest wails. “My contact's come loose!” Waiters drift amongst the crowd with trays of salmon and fennel flans, chicken tenderloins, almond croissants.

After a dressage display, the competing horses - trained for three-quarters of an hour most days for three or four years - enter the arena, their jumping boots pristine and a number of them wearing “bonnets” (embroidered windbreaks placed over their ears and making them look, as one onlooker commented, “like members of the Ku Klux Klan”). Each animal froths copiously at the mouth, this spume indicative of a prized sensitivity to the bit. Their formation before the Royal Box is perfect; each rider bows to the royal triumvirate as bass-heavy music echoes from the loudspeakers. It is a picturesque tableau, and markedly different to that of the adjoining Sydney Cricket Ground.

“There is,” Dumas-Hermes states with a pragmatic shrug, “an elite part in every society. In bygone times, the upper classes were addicted to luxury - it was a mechanical thing, nothing to do with connoisseurship. You would have your suits made in Savile Row the way that you would brush your teeth. These days, it's more a matter of discrimination.”

Every object has its purpose, that purpose presupposing a lifestyle, that lifestyle presupposing character. The Hermes range is no different. Dumas-Hermes has always believed that God is in the details. “But,” he smiles, “the Devil is, too.” From an issue of Le Monde d'Hermes: “She gave in to the temptation to offer him a practical, sturdy gardening apron in shades of brown with a reinforced border to protect his knees while he's planting herbs. With matching gloves to use when he's weeding. He offers her bouquets of flowers cut with small clippers covered in two-toned leather. Colours are essential in her life.”

Dumas-Hermes believes in the potential of elite Australasian women to “evolve from being Hermes customers to being Hermes patrons”. To him, the “dollar zone market” and the “yen zone market” are yin and yang. His prescience has been rewarding: in the 1990s, Europe's trade with Asia has overtaken its trade with North America, making Australasia worthy of serious courtship.

“The market is in the East because when I look at the basin,” he says, spreading his hands, “huge, fabulous, of the Pacific - I know that it is the same as Venice, which in the 13th century became this extraordinary centre of wealth and power and knowledge. The reason for being French is to be supplier of these new powers - not with servility, but bringing in a certain way of seeing the world that the French have. We can, with humility, in France work to supply the new Venetians. In the next millennium, the Venetians are around the Pacific Ocean!”

Hoof to rail. At 3pm, the afternoon tea break is over and the second round is underway. One of the horses baulks at blue-and-white 7; its rider flips over its neck and smartly lands on his feet. In the distance, the oddly incongruous sounds of traffic. Groundsmen in pale yellow Hermes aprons stand at the sidelines, watching the competitors. Bertran de Balanda, his eyes blue as cracked ice as they focus on the fence ahead, has mastered his gelding but it is too late for him to be placed in the final round. (The week before he left Paris, a two-day forum “aimed at boosting trade ties” between Europe and Asia was held there; 125 business leaders from 25 countries attended.) Red Arrow jets scream through the sky, leaving the colours red and white against the blue.

The former French finance minister, Alain Madelin, began a controversy when he stated that France is not dissimilar to France on the eve of the 1789 Revolution. “The new aristocracy encompasses the political establishment, bureaucrats, and the country's elite, who are trained in prestigious schools.” It is difficult to know at which point the pursuit of excellence is distorted into a destructive grandiosity, but the global economic swing towards luxury goods indicates exhaustion with the utilitarian nature of democracy. Dumas-Hermes, who calls share-prices “a thermometer showing the heat of interest”, was ecstatic when the brokerage house (Cheuvreux de Virieu) replaced Dior with Hermes on its recommended list for big capitalization stocks. The previous year's 39% increase in profits may have convinced Dumas-Hermes that what he refers to as “the aggression of banality” has abated.

Banality, though, can be many things - Pratesi sheets, say, or Limoges china, even La Tour d'Argent. All dogma entails restriction. And the reluctance of the new Venetians to accept foreign protocol is strong. When Sharon Scott of Victoria is announced to be the winner, the public grandstand drains. The only spectators left to watch Princess Haya awarding the trophy are guests of the company.

* Originally written for Elle