For almost 150 years, S.T. Dupont has been synonymous with luxury – combining creativity, uncompromising quality and unique expertise passed down from generation to generation.
Learn all about our Maison's fascinating history in a few key dates!
THE BEGINNINGS
As Napoleon III’s photographer and a pioneering spirit with a keen eye for aesthetics, in 1872, aged just 25, Simon Tissot Dupont opened his first leatherwork shop in Paris.
His personalised travel trunks soon became the ultimate accessory for Europe’s elite. The leading shops of the late nineteenth century, such as the Grand Magasins du Louvre, selected him as a supplier, and personalities such as Eugénie de Montijo ordered her vanity case from Dupont.
A WORKSHOP IN FAVERGES
Lucien and André, Simon Tissot Dupont’s sons, took the reins in 1919 and decided in 1924 to move the Parisian workshop to the family home in Faverges, in Haute-Savoie. With the new workshop located beside Lake Annecy, Europe’s purest lake, S.T. Dupont products are manufactured in one of France’s most remarkable natural environments.
THE INNOVATIONS THAT MADE THE MAISON FAMOUS
In 1930, Lucien Tissot Dupont developed an entirely new tanning technique using diamond powder to give S.T. Dupont’s leather even greater durability and suppleness. This means that the leather can withstand heat, humidity and the trials of travelling. This sophisticated technique is still used for the Diamond Soft range.
After recruiting Georges Novossiltzeff in 1935, S.T. Dupont became the first luxury Maison to master the Asian lacquer technique on metal – and has held the secret ever since.
The two Tissot Dupont brothers also illustrated their entrepreneurial spirit and ability to reinvent when they developed the first luxury petrol lighter during the Second World War; the Maharaja of Patiala was among the first customers to adopt this brand-new product. Shortly afterwards, in 1952, the first luxury gas lighter was developed: the “D57”. This technical revolution offered the unique ability to adjust the intensity of the flame using a little lever on the burner.
Following a request from Jackie Kennedy Onassis and keen to satisfy its demanding clientele, in 1973 the Maison S.T. Dupont designed the first luxury ballpoint pen, the “Classique S.T. Dupont”.
In 2017, on the first lighter’s 75th anniversary, S.T. Dupont revealed the world’s first complication lighter. Resembling gold and palladium lace and simultaneously powerful and delicate, this metal paradox comprising 200 parts is protected by a secret code with visible working parts. With both a double flame and torch flame, this illustration of the Faverges artisans’ skills took four years to design and produce.
S.T. DUPONT: THE “TRUNK-MAKER OF KINGS”
In 1934, the press hailed the Maison as the “trunk-maker of kings”.
Blue bloods, cinema legends, fashion icons, wealthy industrials and politicians, all the greatest names would come to the Parisian headquarters where Lucien and his staff welcomed them as they should. Nothing was too beautiful or extravagant.
The Maison’s famous clients included Wallis Simpson, who ordered a custom travel trunk in 1945.
Two years later, the iconic “Bogie” was born when Hollywood star Humphrey Bogart asked S.T. Dupont’s artisans to create a lightweight travel bag for flights and weekends aboard his yacht, Santana. That same year, S.T. Dupont crafted its very last travel trunk for Queen Elizabeth II, to celebrate her wedding with the Duke of Edinburgh.
In 1953, André Tissot Dupont designed the Riviera handbag with its secret compartment for Audrey Hepburn.
