The history of Hermès

Hermès is a luxury French fashion house, celebrated worldwide for its seamless blend of heritage and innovation. Founded in Paris in the early 19th century as a harness workshop, the brand’s commitment to exceptional craftsmanship has endured for over 180 years. Today, the exclusivity of signature items such as Birkin and Kelly bags makes them highly sought-after by collectors, with Hermès continually emphasising quality over quantity.

As society modernised, fewer people needed horse-riding gear and Hermès evolved with the times. Under the leadership of Charles-Émile and later his son Émile-Maurice Hermès, the company expanded to also sell bags.

The first bag Hermès created was the Haut à Courroies, released in the early 1900s to carry saddles and riding equipment. The bag’s combination of functionality with elegance became the blueprint for the Hermès bags that later followed.

The brand’s first handbag came in 1922, when Émile-Maurice made one for his wife when she couldn’t find a bag she liked. This development of handbags for everyday use signalled Hermès’ move into the luxury bag market.

Although the value of handcrafted quality remained, Émile-Maurice introduced several production efficiencies that enabled the company to expand. One pivotal innovation came in 1922 when he incorporated zips into leather goods, after securing exclusive rights to use the mechanism in France.

In 1937, Robert Dumas — Émile-Maurice's son-in-law — introduced the first silk scarf, known as the carré for its classic square shape. The scarf was inspired by riding silk and Hermès used dense Chinese silk that was twice as strong as conventional fabric.

In the late 1950s, Princess Grace Kelly of Monaco famously used her Hermès scarf as a stylish sling when she injured her arm, highlighting the scarf’s ability to be both durable and chic.

The debut silk scarf design, Jeu des Omnibus et Dames Blanches, marked the beginning of what would become one of the house’s most recognisable products.

Each scarf takes months to design and produce, as they are screen-printed by hand and feature intricate designs. Hermès scarves have now featured artwork by over 150 artists.

The Kelly bag was first introduced in 1935, originally called the Sac à Dépêches. The bag gained international fame in 1956, when Grace Kelly used it to shield her pregnancy bump from the paparazzi.

The photograph of Kelly using the bag was printed in newspapers and magazines globally, leading Hermès to officially rename the bag after her in 1977.

The bag’s ladylike structured design and impeccable craftsmanship made it one of the most coveted handbags in the world, with a signature of the bag being its swivelling 'touret'. In 2021, a Hermès Himalaya Diamond Kelly 28 sold for HK$4 million at Christie’s in Hong Kong.

By the early 1950s, Hermès had created their first silk tie and introduced their first perfume, Eau d’Hermès, signalling the company’s expansion. This marked the beginning of a new chapter for the brand, with Robert Dumas taking the reins of Hermès in 1951.

The company had made its first foray into watchmaking earlier, in 1912, when Émile-Maurice invented a ‘porte-oignon’ leather strap that meant his daughter could wear her pocket watch on her wrist. In 1928, the brand introduced the Ermeto watch, made in collaboration with Swiss watchmakers.

Hermès did not become a watchmaker itself until 1978, when the company established La Montre Hermès in Switzerland. This marked the start of in-house watch production and the creation of collections such as the Arceau and the Kelly watch, named after the Kelly bag.

Hermès’ distinctive duc-carriage-with-horse logo was introduced in the 1950s. This logo drew inspiration from the company’s equestrian roots and was supposedly inspired by Alfred de Dreux’s painting Le Duc Attelé, Groom à L'Attente, which depicted a horse-drawn carriage waiting for its groom.

In the 1920s, Hermès packaging was designed in a cream shade and then became a mustard yellow in the 1930s. In World War II, there were shortages of both these colour boxes — though the brand’s supplier did have boxes in a bright orange hue available. The 'Orange H' box has since become synonymous with Hermès — so much so that the largest single-owner collection of the brand ever offered at auction was titled ‘Inside the Orange Box’.

The Birkin bag was created in 1984 after a chance encounter on a flight between actress Jane Birkin and the then Hermès CEO, Jean-Louis Dumas. When Birkin mentioned she struggled to find a practical yet elegant handbag, she and Jean-Louis came up with the design for the Birkin bag on that flight — on the back of an air-sickness bag.

The bag was celebrated for its spacious design, use of luxurious materials and handmade construction. The stitch Hermès uses — the saddle — cannot be replicated by a machine, reflecting Jean-Louis’s sentiment: ‘We don’t have a policy of image, we have a policy of product.’

This means it takes a single expert craftsman up to 40 hours to produce a Birkin bag, with extensive customer waiting lists. Birkins are some of the most valuable bags in the world — in November 2025, a Himalaya Birkin 25 sold for HK$3.6 million at Christie’s, making it the most expensive Himalaya Birkin bag to sell at auction.