Pascale Mussard with three Chinese designers at the ongoing Shanghai Petit h exhibition. [Photo provided to China Daily]

The question led her to start an in-house unit for reusing materials that were among waste at Hermes to create works including furniture, accessories and toys.

In 2009, she and half a dozen craftsmen created some 100 items from discarded and unused materials, calling Petit h.

The first collection of works under the name Petit h hit Hermes stores in Paris in 2010, and since then the line has been popping up like a caravan of color at Hermes boutiques around the world. Now, its latest edition is in Shanghai for the first time on the mainland, with more than 1,000 pieces on sale through Nov 29.

The pieces include a leather panda, a bamboo horse, pebble stoppers and leather handles for doors, and a teacup case made of crocodile skin with a Hermes silk scarf inside the case. The teacup case was designed at a Chinese customer's request.

As a child in the years after World War II, Mussard, 58, was influenced by the attitude of "use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without".

"Our motto is, 'We don't throw anything away!' This is a different way of looking at things," she tells China Daily on the sidelines of a media preview ahead of the Shanghai sale.