Hermès

Hermès ranks high in our ranking of the most popular luxury brands online every year, and it gets there while doing almost none of the things that usually drive the numbers. It posts sparingly. It runs no logo campaign. It has never made a bag you can walk in and buy from open stock.

The restraint is not a marketing pose. Hermès is limited by how many saddle-stitchers it can train, and it has chosen to stay limited rather than industrialize. That single decision explains the resale market, the waiting culture and most of what people find infuriating about the brand. Six generations on, the founding family still controls the company.

Behind the brand

History of Hermès

Thierry Hermès opened a harness workshop in Paris in 1837 and built a name among carriage owners for stitching that would not fail. When the automobile made harnesses obsolete, the family moved the same craft into luggage, then handbags, then some of the first leather goods made with a zipper in France in the 1920s.

The silk scarf, the carré, arrived in 1937 and became the second pillar of the business. The Kelly took its name from Grace Kelly, who was photographed in 1956 shielding a pregnancy behind one. Hermès had made the bag since the 1930s. The Birkin came in 1984, reportedly designed after Jane Birkin complained on a flight that she could not find a bag that held everything.

The independence was tested in public when LVMH quietly built a stake of more than twenty percent from 2010. The Hermès families closed ranks, pooled their shares into a holding company and forced LVMH to unwind the position by 2014. That fight is the reason the house can still refuse to grow faster than its ateliers.

The Birkin, the Kelly and how to buy one

The Birkin and the Kelly dominate the conversation. Hermès does not sell its quota bags from open stock. A single artisan builds each one, output is capped by how many leatherworkers the house has trained, and boutiques offer the bags to clients with a spending history. There is no official waiting list, whatever the resale market implies. The two differ in shape and use: the Kelly has one handle and a structured, trapezoidal body, while the Birkin has two handles, a wider opening and a slouchier shape built for everyday carrying.

The range beneath them is where most people actually start. The Evelyne, the Garden Party, the Herbag, the Picotin and the Constance are all easier to buy and far less expensive. The Oran sandal, the Clic and Kelly bracelets and the silk carré are the true entry points, and they are made to the same standard as the quota bags. We rank the full lineup in our guide to the best Hermès bags, and if you are not prepared to wait, our Birkin alternatives covers the field.

Scarves, silk and the equestrian roots

The carré is the second thing Hermès is known for and the easiest to own. Each scarf is ninety centimeters of silk twill, printed by hand in Lyon from engraved screens, and a single intricate design can need dozens of screens for one run of colors. The house has produced well over a thousand designs since 1937 and reissues the archive in fresh colorways every season. The horse never left, either. The logo shows a duc carriage with a groom but no master. Hermès makes the equipment and the client does the driving, and the house still takes orders for bespoke saddles. The Apple Watch Hermès, running since 2015, is the one place those leather straps have met a screen.

Craftsmanship and materials

One artisan makes one bag from start to finish. Hermès trains its leatherworkers in-house over years, and it closes the seams with saddle stitch worked by hand with two needles and waxed linen thread. A saddle-stitched seam holds even when a single thread breaks, where a machine lockstitch unravels.

The house owns its tanneries and a silk operation in Brazil, and it names its leathers rather than hiding them. Togo and Clemence are prized for their grain, Epsom for its structure, Box calf for its shine. Hermès also runs a repair service, the Hermès spa, that will take back a bag decades old and return it refurbished. A brand that can restore a forty-year-old Kelly has a different relationship with durability than one that cannot.

Where to buy Hermès

Hermès sells through its own boutiques and its official site, though the site rarely lists the quota bags. Scarves, homeware, fragrance and small leather goods are straightforward to buy in store or online. Birkins and Kellys are allocated in person. The secondhand market is large, liquid and full of counterfeits, so buy through a specialist that authenticates rather than a marketplace listing.

Hermès prices

A new Hermès Birkin 25 costs $13,500 at retail. On resale sites it is listed for about $27,200, 101% more than its retail price. The 24 Hermès bags we track cost $2,525 to $25,200 new. Sellers typically ask more than retail for 11 of them.

Today’s resale prices for 24 models