Roggwiller tannery in select company

Roggwiller Tannery of Louisiana may be Lafayette's best-kept secret.

It is one of only 10 exotic tanneries in the world, a company with fewer than 50 employees that processes on average 10,000 alligator skins a month and some 120,000 to 150,000 a year.

"One (Hermes) bag in alligator can be over $10,000, and the wait is one year for each bag," said de Reynies, who will be working closely with Laurence Dordat, the newly appointed president of Hermes' tannery division.

The wait list for a Birkin bag, which takes 18 to 25 hours to make at a rate of just five per week, can be five years.