60 Minutes - 12/15/2024: Syria, Unveiling, The House of Hermes

Episode Date: December 16, 2024

As rebel forces toppled the Assad regime in a stunning victory that decimated a 50-year authoritarian rule, correspondent Scott Pelley reports from Damascus, Syria on what the future holds for a country recovering from brutal war crimes, displacement, and a deepening economic crisis. Pelley delivers his eighth report from Syria since he started covering the conflict in 2014 and looks at what’s next for a nation moving towards change amid a new world order in the Middle East. Correspondent Anderson Cooper reports on the misuse of artificial intelligence, investigating what are known as nudify websites and apps, which use AI to turn a real photo of someone fully clothed into a real-looking nude image. Cooper meets Francesca Mani, a high school student who was victimized by this technology last year who is now advocating to raise awareness in schools and urging Congress to pass legislation to help safeguard kids. Correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi takes you inside the House of Hermès for an intimate look at the artisans and culture behind one of France's revered luxury brands, where a distinctively French philosophy is stitched into its DNA. As Alfonsi learns from Hermés' Artistic Director and sixth generation of the family, Pierre-Alexis Dumas, the allure comes from nearly 200 years of extraordinary artistry and craftsmanship. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Damascus is a city nearly 5,000 years old. But over this decade, the war has seemed like the end of civilization. I've even seen on social media platforms people showing before and after photos of what are clearly, like, high school girls. And I've, like, reversed image searched the original photo, and they're, like, high school girls, like, swim meets. You'll see these are very clearly, these are minors, and adult content is being made of them, non-consensually,

then also being posted on social media. I think a lot of parents would be surprised to learn that you post a picture of your child on your Instagram account, your child could end up a naked photo of your child out there. Yeah. On a rainy afternoon, we watched as Pierre-Alexis Dumas, the artistic director of Hermès, turned his discerning eye to dozens of potential scarf designs. Hermès scarves are screened and stitched by hand.

The only part of the process that happens quickly is this. Dumas chose the colors for next season's scarves in less than an hour. I'm a happy man. Voilà, look at the disaster. A mountain of hope reduced to ashes. I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Anderson Cooper.

I'm Sharon Alfonsi. I'm John Wertheim. I'm Cecilia Vega. I'm Anderson Cooper. I'm Sharon Alfonsi. I'm John Wertheim. I'm Cecilia Vega. I'm Scott Pelley. Those stories and more tonight on 60 Minutes. Wendy's most important deal of the day has a fresh lineup. Pick any two breakfast items for $4. New four-piece French toast sticks, bacon or sausage wrap,

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Plus, enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart. Groceries that over-deliver. Tonight, the Middle East is reeling from the astonishing fall of Bashar al-Assad, former president of Syria. Scott Pelley is in the Syrian capital, Damascus. An entire generation of Syrians has never known freedom.

And so when it swept over them last Sunday, there was shock, then joy, and a desperate hope that it might last. Damascus is a city nearly 5,000 years old, but over this decade, the war has seemed like the end of civilization. Half a million Syrians are dead. 13 million have been forced from their homes. This past week, we traveled 300 miles on the road to Damascus to meet a people awakening from 50 years of dictatorship. Take the road to Damascus from the east, and you find the suburb of Ain Tarma. The outskirts of one of the great cities of history has been bombed into the Stone Age. This was President Bashar al-Assad's answer to mostly unarmed protests that began in 2011.

Many who rose against Assad then are still here. That's the Zeydan family. We were living here in peace. When we just demanded freedom and to be able to earn our daily bread, the Assad regime started bombing us. Mohamed Saeed Zeydan and his wife, Nihal, have lived here two years. When you came back here after the shelling,

what did you see? What did you think? We couldn't hold back our tears when we came back here. We're not nomads, but what could we do? No electricity, no running water. Fifteen families in the Zeydan building alone. Six flights up, 70-year-old Nadja Zeydan burns rags to cook. There's no fuel, no trees.

The ceiling looks exhausted, and winter comes this week. We'd like to show you the immensity, but we can't, because the ruins run for miles in every direction, and this is what you would see in most every Syrian city. To stay in power, Assad left his people to starve. So Mohammed Zaidan built a furrow from broken bricks to farm radishes, spring onions, and coriander. When you first heard that Assad was gone, could you believe it? We felt like everyone else, like we were in a bad dream and finally woke up. She said, we're still in shock. Is he gone for real?

On the road, the signposts of history tell the backstory. Hafez al-Assad, the father, ruled from 1970. The bullet holes give you a sense of how he's remembered. Then in the year 2000, the son, Bashar, continued the brutal police state. We've been covering the civil war for 12 years. It began with an exodus of millions. At the time, the greatest humanitarian catastrophe since World War II. This berm marks the border between Syria and Jordan. The refugees that we ran into were coming across the top

of the berm and turning themselves in to the safety of the Jordanian turning themselves in to the safety of the Jordanian border officers here. We reported on the relentless bombardment of civilians and the rescue work of Syrians known as the White Helmets. helmets. They're civil defense volunteers who have given thousands a second chance at life. We covered Assad's 2013 nerve gas and chemical attacks that killed an estimated 1,400 civilians. By 2015, Russia and Iran had joined the war to prop up Assad's forces. Russian airstrikes saved Assad, and we saw bombed hospitals in rebel territory.

A war crime. Everyone's afraid of being beside a hospital because they know the hospital's going to be a target of an airstrike. And with half a million Syrians dead, we met a generation of orphans. Last year, we reported on Syrians left destitute by a massive earthquake in rebel territory. Until this fall, the rebels had been cornered in the north. Assad had all but won the war. But this month, his allies abandoned him. Vladimir Putin had exhausted Russian forces in Ukraine. Iran was fighting Israel.

So three weeks ago, the rebels saw the chance and swept through the major cities to Damascus. Assad's army, hollowed out by corruption, simply ran away. The dictator fled to Moscow. We found nearly all you need to know about Assad's rule in examination room two at Damascus Hospital. These corpses are Assad's prisoners from a notorious jail. Dr. Ayman Nasser told us that he received 35 bodies. There is one with severe signs of torture, he said. Many of the bodies show signs of malnutrition or lack of oxygen from overcrowding in the places where they were kept. The cause of death was most likely multiple organ failure caused by malnutrition.

Starved to death in a prison. They were the last to die of untold thousands of political opponents who vanished into Assad's jails over the decades. When word spread on Facebook that 35 were here, the desperate came searching for the damned. Who are you looking for? came searching for the damned. Who are you looking for? Faiza Hussein Al-Ali's son was arrested. There are so many like my son.

From our village alone, about 70 prisoners. We are drowning in sorrow. Our hearts are burning. I am like every mother here, crushed by pain every day. The regime killed two of my sons. One was killed by a sniper for no reason. The other died rescuing survivors from airstrikes when planes bombed them again.

And he had a girl and a boy. Who are you looking for? My son, Susan Al-Tunji told us. Like many, she received a death certificate from the prison years ago, but no body, no proof. How long has he been missing? Twelve years. I pray I find him. Even if he's dead, it's okay. Just give me the body. All I want is to find some rest. Forensic pathologists compare photos and teeth. This doctor asks a relative, do you have a picture of him smiling? In this way, they have identified 18 so far.

Dr. Nasser told us, we empathize and we do our best to help, but the pressure from the families is overwhelming. We saw that when we met the rage of people who have never known justice. Taghrib al-Badawi's son disappeared 12 years ago. Assad is a war criminal. Someone like him should die like a dog. He and the Assad family should be executed for the horrors we now see.

Who is this, sir? This is my son, he told us, arrested in 2013. They took him at a checkpoint. He was driving a bus for a living. Who is this? Show me. This is your brother? What is his name? In 2012, her brother was arrested on his way to a store.

They gave us his ID card and told my mother never to ask about him again. They're a bunch of butchers. Who is this? And how long has he been missing? 13 years. In the prison. You did not find him here? Do you have hope that you will find him?

We do have hope, he said, God willing. Hope and apprehension are spilling into the streets of Damascus. Most of this city of about two and a half million people is intact because this was the dictator's stronghold. No one under the age of 54 has ever known freedom, has ever been able to speak of politics above a whisper. That's a tough memory to break. One man told us, we got Assad out of Syria. Now we have to get him out of us. There was joy in the crowd headed for Friday prayers. Seventy-five percent of Syrians are from the largest branch of Islam, the Sunnis,

and the rebel leaders are Sunni fundamentalists. But no one knows yet how minority Muslim sects and Christians will be protected. The leader of the rebels is 42-year-old Ahmed Alshara. In 2013, the U.S. named him a terrorist and later put a $10 million bounty on his head. But so far, Alshara has kept order. There's little sign of destruction, looting, or reprisals, and government workers are on the job. The people do not know yet how they will be governed. Peace seems to be in the hearts of many. But the shooting hasn't stopped entirely. Israel last week grabbed the chance to bomb what's left of Syria's military. The U.S. is hitting remnants of ISIS terrorists in central

Syria. As for Russia, satellite pictures of its major naval base on Syria's Mediterranean coast now reveal that the ships are gone. Back where we began, in the Damascus suburb, Ein Tarma, we saw the immensity of what lies ahead. It will take hundreds of billions of dollars to rebuild Syria, and Syria is destitute. Mohammed Zaidan and his wife are resigned to live here. Besides, a new home is not what they want the most. They want their 39-year-old son. In 2012, he was stopped at an Assad regime checkpoint, and they never heard from him again. What does that mean for your lives now that Assad is gone? This feels like a new birth, a new beginning.

Though my hair has turned gray and my time has passed, we feel, thank God, young again. We hope by the hands of our young people, God willing, it will be better than it was before. A new Syria is likely to be built by the kind of people who look out on despair and somehow see a future. Experience tells Syrians they have no reason to hope that freedom will last and yet that hope endures. that with Public Mobile's 5G subscription phone plans, you'll pay the same thing every month.

With all of the mysteries that life has to offer, a few certainties can really go a long way. Subscribe today for the peace of mind you've been searching for. Public Mobile. Different is calling. Hi there, I'm Ryan Reynolds, and I have a list of things I like to have on set. It's just little things like two freshly cracked eggs, scrambled with crispy hash brown, sausage crumble, and creamy chipotle sauce from Tim Hortons. From my writer to Tim's menu, try my new scrambled eggs loaded breakfast box. In October last year, a 14-year-old

girl named Francesca Mani was sitting in her high school history class when she heard a rumor that some boys had naked photos of female classmates. She soon learned her picture was among them, but the images were doctored, created with artificial intelligence using what's known as a nudify website or app, which turns real photos of someone fully clothed into real-looking nudes. We found nearly 30 similar incidents in schools in the U.S. over the last 20 months, and plenty more around the world. We want to warn you, some of what you'll hear and see is disturbing. But we think unveiling these nudify websites is important, in part because they're not hidden on the dark web.

They're openly advertised, easy to use, and as Francesca Mani found out, there isn't much that's been done to stop them. When you first heard the rumor, you didn't know that there were photos or a photo of you? No, we didn't know. I think that was like the most chaotic day I've ever witnessed. In a school, somebody gets an inkling of something and it just spreads. It's like rapid fire. It just goes through everyone. And so then when someone hears this, it's like, wait, like AI?

Like no one thinks that could like happen to you. Francesca Mani knew nothing about nudify websites when she discovered she and several of the girls at Westfield High School in New Jersey had been targeted. According to a lawsuit later filed by one of the other girls through her parents, a boy at the school uploaded photos from Instagram to a site called Clothoff. We're naming the site to raise awareness of its potential dangers. There are more than a hundred of these nudify websites. A quick search is all it takes to find them. Clothoff is one of the most popular, with more than three million visits last month, according to Grafica, a company that analyzes social networks.

It now offers to nudify males as well, but female nudes are far more popular. Have someone to undress, Clothoff's website asks. You can upload a photo or get a free demonstration in which an image of a woman appears with clothes on, then a few seconds later, her clothes are gone. We're blurring it out, but the results look very real. Francesca Mani never saw what had been done to her photo, but according to that lawsuit, at least one girl's AI nude was shared on Snapchat and seen by several kids at school. What made it worse, Francesca says, is that she and the

other girls found out they were the victims when they were called by name to the principal's office over the school's public address system. I feel like that was a major violation of our privacy, while the bad actors were taken out of their classes privately. When I left the principal's office, I was walking through a hallway and I saw this group of boys laughing at this group of girls crying. And that's when I realized I should stop crying and be mad because this is unacceptable. That afternoon, Westfield's principal sent this email to all high school parents, informing them,

some of our students had used artificial intelligence to create pornographic images from original photos. The principal also said the school was investigating and, at this time, we believe that any created images have been deleted and are not being circulated. Francesca's mom, Dorota, who's also an educator, was not convinced. Do you think they did enough? Well, I don't know. Anderson, you work in television. Is anything deleted in the digital world? You feel like even if somebody deletes something somewhere, who knows where these images may be? Who printed, who screenshotted, who downloaded? You can't really wipe it out. Dorota says she filed a police report, but no charges have been brought. She was shocked by the school's handling of the whole incident. The principal informed me that one boy receives one-day suspension, and that was it.

So I asked her if this is all. Are there going to be any other consequences? And she said, no, for now, this is all that is going to happen. The school district wouldn't confirm details about the photos, the students involved, or any disciplinary action. In a statement to 60 Minutes, the school superintendent said the district revised its harassment, intimidation, and bullying policy to incorporate AI, something the Manis said they spent months urging school officials to do. You feel like the girls paid a bigger cost in the end than the boy or boys who were involved in this did. Because they just have to live with knowing that maybe an image is floating, their image is floating around the internet, and they just have to deal with what the boys did.

Colina Coltai has been looking into Clothoff and other nudify sites for more than a year. She's a senior researcher who specializes in the misuse of AI at Bellingcat, an international investigative group. This site, as soon as you get there, it says you have to be 18 or over to use the website. You can't use others' photos without their permission. You can't use pictures of people who are under 18. Is there any way for them to actually check if you're under 18 or over 18? You'll see as we click accept that there's no verification. And now we're ready here. And immediately you're getting very explicit photos.

And then they have the poses feature, which is one of their new settings, which is the different sex poses, which is the premium feature. Wow. So, wow. And this is the preview. Clothoff and other nudify sites encourage customers to promote their services on social media, and users often show off their favorite before-and-after AI nudes. I've even seen on social media platforms people showing before-and-after photos of what are clearly high school girls.

And I've reversed image searched the original photo, and they're like high school girls like swim meets. See, these are very clearly minors, and adult content is being made of them, non-consensually, then also being posted on social media. I think a lot of parents would be surprised to learn that you post a picture of your child on your Instagram account, your child could end up a naked photo of your child out there. Yeah. And so you have a registration.

To nudify a photo on ClothOff is free, the first time. After that, it costs from $2 to $40. The payment options often change, but there are always plenty to choose from. It's given me everything from crypto to using a credit card for a variety of different credit cards. We got PayPal here, Google Pay. I would imagine some of these companies are not thrilled that their services are being used by these websites. Yeah, and in many of these cases, it directly violates their policies. To trick online payment services, Kalina Koltai says Clothoff and other nudify sites redirect their customers' payments through phony websites,

like these pretending to sell flowers and photography lessons. Say, for example, you want to pay through PayPal. So we click this, and it'll take a second. So it's now redirecting you. It's redirecting through a dummy website. So that way, on PayPal's end, it looks like you may be purchasing anything from motorcycles or beekeeping lessons or rollerblade lessons. And so now we got to a PayPal screen.

But we can see down here, it says cancel and return to internookdesigns.motorcycles. So that's what PayPal is being told is the website that's asking for the charge? Yes. PayPal told us it banned ClothOff from its platforms a year ago and shuts down the accounts for these redirect sites when it finds them. The problem is ClothOff often just creates new ones. On this login screen here... And that's not the only deception it relies on. Its website lists a name, Grupo Digital,

with an address in Buenos Aires, Argentina, implying that's where ClothOff is based. But when we sent our cameras, there was no Grupo Digital there. It turned out to be the office of a YouTube channel that covers politics. And when we knocked on the door, the employee who answered said she'd never heard of Clothoff. Clothoff also made up a fake CEO, according to Kalina Koltai, complete with what she says is an AI-generated headshot.

There is a really inherent shadiness that's happening. They're not being transparent about who owns it. They're obviously trying to mask their payments. But you look at the sophistication of these really large sites, it's completely different than, say, some guy in a basement that set up a site that he's trying to do it on his own. When these sites launched and the way that they've been developing and going this past year, it is not someone's first road. It's not the first time they set up a complex network. Clothoff claims on its website that processing of minors is impossible. We emailed what the site says as a press contact,

asking for any evidence of that and to respond to a number of other questions. We didn't hear back. A lot of people might say, well, these images are fake, but we know victims will suffer humiliation. They'll suffer mental health distress and reputational harm. In a school setting, it's really amplified because one of their peers has created this imagery. So there's a loss of confidence, a loss of trust. Yoda Suras is chief legal officer at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Her organization regularly works with tech companies to flag inappropriate content on their sites.

In at least three cases, Snapchat was reportedly used to circulate these photos. One instance, a parent told us that it took more than eight months to get the accounts that had shared the images taken down. Their responsiveness to victims, that is a recurring problem that we see across tech companies. So it's not as easy as a parent sending a note through Snapchat,

hey, this is happening, my child has been exploited. It's entirely unclear why it is not a faster process. We can actually notify tech companies as well and ask them to take that content down. And individuals do that? Much faster than when an individual calls. Yes. That isn't the way it should be, right? I mean, a parent whose child has exploitative or child pornography images online should not have to rely on reaching out to a third party and having them call the tech company. The tech company should be assuming responsibility immediately to remove that content. Why are they not doing that?

Because I do not think there are ramifications to them not doing so. Social media companies are shielded from lawsuits involving photos someone posts online due to what Yoda Suris considers an outdated law. Under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a law from 1996, so a very different world back then, online platforms have near complete immunity for any liability arising from content that a user puts on their system. The Section 230 protection is really what allows this very loose ecosystem to exist in terms of nudify apps and websites that cause harm to children. We asked Snapchat about that parent who told us the company didn't respond to her for eight months. A Snapchat spokesperson told us they've been unable to locate her request and said, in part,

we have efficient mechanisms for reporting this kind of content, and added, we have a zero tolerance policy for such content, and act quickly to address it once reported. AI nudes of minors are illegal under federal child pornography laws, according to the Department of Justice, if they depict what's defined as sexually explicit conduct. But Suris is concerned some images created by nudify sites may not meet that definition. There's this gap in the law around a nudify app that desperately needs to be shut. What are the gaps in the law? Currently, a nude image of a child that does not include sexually explicit conduct is not illegal.

And that is a serious gap that exists for real children, and that exists certainly for images of nude children that are created by a nudify app. Sent a clear message that what the boys had done... In the years since Francesca Mani found out she was targeted, she and her mom have urged schools to implement policies around AI and worked with members of Congress to try and pass a number of federal bills. The Take It Down Act does two things. The Take It Down Act, co-sponsored by Senators Ted Cruz and Amy Klobuchar,

made it through the Senate this month and is now awaiting a vote in the House. It would create criminal penalties for sharing AI nudes and require social media companies to take photos down within 48 hours of getting a request. Schools don't really know how to address this. Police, in many cases, don't do much at this stage. And the sites are making, I presume, millions of dollars off this. So can it be fixed? Absolutely. If we have the appropriate laws, we will have the criminal consequences, first of all, to deter offenders. And then they'll be held liable if they're still using these apps.

We would have civil remedies for victims. Schools would have protocols. Investigators and law enforcement would have roadmaps on how to investigate, what charges to bring. But we're a long way from that. We just need the laws in place. All the rest will come from that. Hit pause on whatever you're listening to and hit play on your next adventure.

Stay three nights this summer at Best Western and get $50 off a future stay. Life's a trip. Make the most of it at Best Western. Visit bestwestern.com for complete terms and conditions. In Greek mythology, Hermes, the son of Zeus, was imagined with winged sandals and a winged hat, symbols of his celebrated speed. Today, the French fashion house Hermès that shares his name is also known for its accessories,

elegant scarves, ties, and handbags, all meticulously made, but at a glacial pace. It can take years for moneyed customers to get their hands in certain Hermès handbags, a process steeped in more mythology than even the Greeks could have imagined. The craft and culture behind the brand has been preserved for nearly 200 years by one family and is seldom seen by outsiders.

But this spring, we were invited to Paris to spend some time behind the silk curtains of the House of Hermès. On a rainy afternoon, we watched as Pierre-Alexis Dumas, the artistic director of Hermès, turned his discerning eye to dozens of potential scarf designs. Colours and patterns displayed on what looked like the world's chicest clothesline. Hermès scarves are screened and stitched by hand. Some designs two years in the making. The only part of the process that happens quickly is this. Dumas chose the colours for next season's scarves in less than an hour.

I'm a happy man. Bravo. Merci, Pierre-Alexis. Voilà, look at the disaster. A mountain of hope reduced to ashes. The house of Hermès wasn't built on silk, but rather saddles. In 1837, Thierry Hermès began selling bespoke harnesses in Paris. That led to luggage and eventually handbags.

More than a century later, Hermès is a more than $200 billion luxury brand with a catalog that includes everything from ready-to-wear to jewelry and furniture. Pierre-Alexis Dumas is the sixth generation of his family to take the reins. I think it's a wonderful way to enter the store. He took us through a tunnel of orange boxes into 24 Faux-Port in Paris, Hermès' flagship and heart for more than a century. My grandfather worked here and then my father worked here. When I was a child, his office was just on the first floor. Now it's the jewelry section.

The store is like the Louvre of luxury goods, complete with reminders to look but don't touch. The brand's masterpieces include this $48,000 purse, and if you have money left over, this $272,000 pool table. Do you ever make a decision based on cost, budget? Like, this will be less expensive if we do it this way. I can't work like that. I've always heard that Hermès is very costly.

It's not expensive, it's costly. What's the difference? The cost is the actual price of making an object properly, with the required level of attention so that you have an object of quality. Expensive is a product which is not delivering what it's supposed to deliver, but you've paid quite a large amount of money for it and then it betrays you. That's expensive. A distinctly French philosophy stitched into the DNA of Hermès. Dumas says the company has never had a marketing department. Its allure, he says, comes from a century of superb craftsmanship and serendipity.

Take this trapezoid-shaped purse. In 1935, Dumas' grandfather designed the bag. It wasn't a hit. But his legend has it, 20 years later, an expecting Grace Kelly used the bag to hide her belly from peering paparazzi. Soon, women flooded Hermès, asking for what was eventually renamed the Kelly Bag. Hermès scarves have been favored by American royalty and actual royalty for decades, the kind of product placement money can't buy. Even the brand's famous citrus-colored boxes, a color the company trademarked in the U.S.,

was a happy accident of the 1940s. In 1946, there was shortage of everything. And when my great-uncle went to see his supplier of paper manufacturing boxes, the supplier said, I'm sorry, we don't have that beige paper anymore. Because of the war? Yeah, because of the war and short supplies. And he said, I only have that stock of that roll of orange paper that nobody wants.

Eyes light up when they see that orange. Yeah, serendipity. And it was serendipity that led to the pièce de résistance at Hermès, the Birkin, designed in 1984 by Dumas' father after he was seated next to British actress Jane Birkin on a flight to London. And she told him, well, let me tell you, I'm not happy about my bag. I want something more loose with bigger handles and always open when I carry it.

And as she was talking, my father was very good at sketching. He sketched it right there in that moment. Yeah, just an idea, you know, something like that. I said, yeah, that would be great. It was. Today, the Birkin is the most coveted and costly handbag in the world. A Birkin retails around $9,000, and at auction can fetch upwards of hundreds of thousands of dollars. But here

is the surreal twist of Hermès exclusivity. Even if you can afford to buy a Birkin bag, chances are you can't. The stores typically don't have any to sell. Dumas says Hermès simply can't keep up with demand. Somebody wants the bag. How do they get the bag? Well, you have to walk into an Hermès store, and you have to be patient. But you know the world we live in, right? You know that if somebody has the funds and they want the bag, they want the bag now. Yes. I have children, too, and I have desires, too.

But I'm saying it's a long process. You go to a store, you get an appointment, you meet a salesperson, you talk about what you want. It's not available. You'll have to wait. It'll come back to you. It takes a long time. Eventually, it's going to happen. Store managers act as gatekeepers for disciples of the brand. There are stories of years-long waiting lists for bags and waiting lists to get on the waiting list, along with whispers from Wall Street

that the company is brilliantly gaming the customer. Hermes has been accused of, you know, creating this artificial scarcity to pump up demand. How do you respond to that? It makes me smile that this is a diabolical marketing idea that can only come out of people obsessed with marketing. But we don't have a marketing department at Hermès. So first of all, when I heard that, I was like, what? Oh, okay, I get it.

Yeah, well, no. Whatever we have, we put on the shelf and it goes. There's not a room where you guys are holding all the bags back and saying, let's see what happens. Maybe we should. The simple truth, Dumas says, is that Hermès doesn't have enough artisans to build the bags, which for a century, he says, have been made from start to finish by a single craftsman. So I always like to say that Hermès is an old lady with startup issues, because we've grown so fast in such a small period. How can you grow so fast without changing what makes you strong? How can you grow so fast without changing what makes you strong?

How can you grow so fast without changing your values? By training people. Training a lot of people for a profession which will be their life profession. They will finish their career at Hermès. In 2021, the House opened a training center in leatherwork where 400 graduates a year are schooled in the art of savoir-faire, or know-how of making things by hand. That includes mastering Hermès' signature saddle stitch. When you have a carriage which is pulled by five horses,

you better make sure that all the equipment you're using is going to be strong. So saddle stitching techniques were not about trying to be hidden. They were about being strong and functional. Today, it is a hallmark of the Hermès bags. And here is a stitch. Dumas learned to saddle stitch as a boy upstairs at the Faubourg, in the workshop where they still build saddles today. He thought it was the perfect place for a lesson.

You're going to hold by applying a gentle pressure with your legs. With my thighs? Yes, your thighs. You're going to be able to hold that little piece of leather so that your hands are free to stitch. With needles in both hands, you're supposed to pull a strong linen thread, coated in beeswax, into precise loops. So I have to have the hands of a heart surgeon and the thighs of a professional wrestler, right? That's a very extreme, but yes, if you manage to

do that, you got a job. Hermès says the crisscross of needles that make the knot can't be replicated by a machine and can take years to master. But those who do are typically offered positions at one of 23 leather workshops that Hermes has built in villages and towns all over France. This is one of them, in Torn, a three-hour drive from Paris in the French countryside. The workshop is quiet. There is no jamming of sewing machines, just artisans performing a silent dance with dueling needles.

The morning we visited, we met Amandine and watched as she put the finishing touches on a Kelly, the most difficult bag to build. It starts with 30 distinct cuts of leather and can take 20 hours to complete, four hours for just the handle. There are no manuals or cheat sheets. Artisans rely on their training and muscle memory to make every bag.

Which bags do you know how to make? The Kelly, the Birkin, the Lindy, the Gypsier, the Schulder. That you've memorized. She told us she started making bags at Hermès 15 years ago and went through two years of training. So you're able to talk to me and do a saddle stitch at the same time? Oui, c'est possible. No one seems to be rushing at the workshop.

The pace is leisurely. No looming clocks or quotas. Just the slow pursuit of perfection. And when the bag is completed... Do you have a special stamp you put in the bag? Yes, we do, she said. But it's a secret. A secret because that hidden mark of the artisan

is how Hermès bags are authenticated. By creating their own pipeline of craftsmen, Hermès says they've been able to produce more of their coveted handbags than ever. Although they won't disclose the exact number, that too is a secret. This year, some customers were so exasperated by all the mystery and their years-long odyssey to secure a Birkin, they've sued Hermès. Pierre-Alexis Dumas says building something timeless takes time. He urged patience while nearly losing it with us. If I went to the Mercedes dealership and I said I would like that car,

and they said, OK, you're going to have to wait five years, they'd be out of business. Yeah, but you're talking about industrial production. You're applying your thinking structure of industrial production to craft. We're about craft. We're not machines. And we are not compromising on the quality of the way we make the bags. So if the craftsperson is not at the level, his or her bag will not go into the store. Even if they've invested that 20 or 30 hours making it? Yeah, I understand. There's no way of speeding it up and keeping the quality. Speed is the structuring value of the 20th century.

We went from horse carriages to the Internet. Are we going to be so obsessed with speed and immediate satisfaction? Maybe not. Maybe there is another form of relation to the world which is linked to patience, to taking the time of making things right. You cannot compress time at one point without compromising on quality.

Now, the last minute of 60 Minutes. Now, an update on Scott Pelley's five-year investigation into the mysterious brain injuries known as Havana Syndrome. Injuries were reported by the White House staff, FBI agents, CIA and military officers, and their families. Last week, the House Intelligence Committee published the results of its new investigation that indicates many of the Havana Syndrome cases were attacks committed by a foreign adversary. That contradicts what the intelligence community, led by the CIA, has been saying for years. The congressional report went further, accusing the intelligence community of obstructing its investigation.

The report also referenced our story targeting Americans when military investigator Greg Edgreen said he had seen evidence of who was behind Havana syndrome. Are we being attacked? My personal opinion, yes. By whom? Russia. I'm Leslie Stahl. We'll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes.