Kelly
structured · from $14,400
A 1930s bag for carrying saddles became the first It bag the day a princess used it to hide a pregnancy.
Tier 1 · France · est. 1837
Hermès
The Hermès story
The rare house where the world’s most wanted handbag began as a tool for a horse.
Est. 1837France150 styles
A Paris saddlery, 1837. Thierry Hermès made riding gear for European nobility.
The saddle-stitch stayed. Each Birkin and Kelly is cut, stitched and signed by a single artisan, start to finish.
1923, a first. The Bolide put the first zipper ever on a handbag.
Named with stable logic. The Kelly for the princess, the Birkin for the actress, the Evelyne and Picotin straight from the stable.
Still in the family. Six generations on, the founding family still controls the house, a large part of why the waitlists and resale premiums run the way they do.
The icons
The bags that made the brand, and where they came from.
Birkin
structured · from $10,500
It began as a doodle on an airplane sick bag, and became the most expensive handbag ever sold.
Named for a baby born the very day it left the workshop, and closed with a single bold H.
Through the years
50
Styles
237
Variants
$425–$38,000
Retail ladder
entry → grail
$400,000
Highest resale
recorded · 1000 sales
$15,683
Avg resale
↓ trending down
Hermès signatures
The most common attributes across 237 catalogued variants.
Colours
Black 2
Materials
Togo Leather 11Clemence Leather 9Swift 9Canvas 8Chevre Mysore 7
Hardware
palladium 25gold 14Palladium-Plated 10Gold-Plated 4
Silhouettes
structured 2
Every Hermès style
A style is the model. Open one to see its variants: the exact size, colour, leather and hardware.
Shop Hermès resale
Read more on Hermès
What it’s actually like to buy Hermès: the history, the waitlists and boutique relationships, what it’s resold for, and which pieces hold their value.
Hermès authentication: The markers worth checking
Hermès uses no serial number, so the blind stamp, the craftsman's mark, and the hand saddle-stitch carry the read. The era cutoffs and hardware tells that matter on a Birkin or Kelly, and why no marker is proof.
By Arielle · Birkin
Hermès color codes, decoded: What Noir 89 and Étoupe 18 mean
The French names and official codes behind Hermès shades, cross-checked and honestly flagged where a code is missing. Durable vocabulary, not a live availability feed.
By Arielle · July 8, 2026 · Birkin
Birkin vs Kelly: which Hermès bag should you get?
On resale the two cost almost the same size-for-size, so the real choice is shape and how you carry it. What each lists for now, and the steep small-size premium on both.
By Arielle · June 27, 2026