Handbags

An Hermès handbag is made by one artisan from start to finish, saddle-stitched by hand using a technique the house developed when it made harness rather than luggage. Two needles pass through the same hole from opposite sides, locking each stitch independently, so a broken thread does not unravel the seam. It is slower than machine stitching by an order of magnitude, and it is the reason supply has never met demand.

Choosing between bags here comes down to four things. Size decides what the bag is for. Leather decides how it looks now and how it will look in five years: Togo holds structure and hides marks, Epsom stays rigid and keeps sharp corners, Clémence drapes and softens, Swift shows colour at full strength but marks easily. Hardware — palladium, gold or rose gold — changes the register of the same bag completely, most of all on dark leathers where the metal is the only contrast. Condition then sets the price.

The lines represented run from the Birkin and its variants through to the shapes that predate it. Where a bag is a Special Order it carries a horseshoe stamp beside the blind stamp and its combination was commissioned once, never produced generally.

Condition here is described rather than graded. Corner wear, handle darkening, hardware patina and interior marks are each stated, and year of production is given wherever the blind stamp can still be read. Photography covers those areas directly so the description can be checked rather than trusted.