## The Saddle Before the Bag

The Saddle Before the Bag

Thierry Hermès opened his workshop at 24 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in 1837. He made harnesses. Not accessories in the modern sense — working leather for working horses. The carriages that rolled through Paris needed bridles, reins, saddles that would last a decade without splitting. Hermès supplied them. His son Émile took over in 1880 and kept the focus narrow: equestrian goods, made by hand, sold to people who knew the difference between a running martingale and a standing one.

There was no grand vision. There was a stitch count and a tannery contract.

By 1900, the automobile had started to displace the horse. Émile's sons, Adolphe and Émile-Maurice, saw the problem early. They didn't abandon leather. They redirected it. Émile-Maurice travelled to North America in 1918 and returned with an exclusive licence for the zipper, which Hermès called the fermeture Hermès. It appeared first on a golf jacket, then on a leather travel bag. The house began making luggage, small leather goods, eventually handbags. The Sac à dépêches — later renamed the Kelly — arrived in the 1930s as a large holdall with a structured frame. It was not designed for Grace Kelly. It was designed for someone who needed to carry documents without creasing them.

The mythology came later.

What Stayed, What Shifted

Hermès remained a family operation longer than most European houses. Robert Dumas, Émile-Maurice's son-in-law, took creative direction in 1951. He designed the Chaîne d'ancre bracelet, the Hermès carré, and the Kelly in its modern proportions. Jean-Louis Dumas, his son, followed in 1978 and commissioned the Birkin in 1984 after a chance conversation with Jane Birkin on an Air France flight. The story is famous enough to sound apocryphal, but Birkin confirmed it in interviews with Vogue and The Guardian over the years. She wanted a bag large enough for her diary and baby things. Dumas sketched one on a sick bag.

That anecdote has been flattened into marketing. What matters is that Jean-Louis Dumas understood the house didn't need to chase trends. It needed to make things people kept. He expanded into ready-to-wear under Martin Margiela in 1997, a hire that puzzled the industry. Margiela's deconstructed tailoring and blank labels seemed incompatible with Hermès' polished classicism. But the collections worked. Margiela left the leather and silk untouched and brought a spare, architectural approach to the clothing. His successor, Christophe Lemaire, softened the line without losing the structure. Then came Nadège Vanhee-Cybulski in 2014, still in place now, refining a wardrobe that prioritises fabric over silhouette.

The creative direction has changed. The production model has not. Hermès still makes its bags in France, one artisan per piece, start to finish. A Birkin takes between 18 and 24 hours of bench time. The waiting list is real, not artificial scarcity. The house produces what its ateliers can make without compromising the stitch count Thierry Hermès established in 1837.

What a Family Business Looks Like at Scale

Hermès went public in 1993 but remains majority-controlled by fifth- and sixth-generation descendants. Axel Dumas, Jean-Louis's nephew, has been CEO since 2013. The structure is unusual. Most heritage houses sold to conglomerates decades ago. Hermès resisted a hostile takeover attempt by LVMH in 2010 by consolidating family shares into a holding company that now controls just over 66 percent of the equity. The move insulated the house from outside pressure to increase production, expand categories, or hire a celebrity creative director.

The result is a business that grows slowly. Revenue in 2023 reached €13.4 billion, up 16 percent on the prior year, but Hermès doesn't open 50 stores annually or flood the market with logo-heavy entry products. The leather goods waiting list functions as demand management. If you want a Birkin, you build a purchase history. If you want a Kelly, you wait. The scarcity is structural, not theatrical.

That model only works if the product justifies the wait. Hermès leather comes from tanneries the house has owned or contracted with for decades. The Barénia calfskin used on some Birkins is the same leather the maison supplied for saddles in the 1920s. It scratches easily and darkens with handling. It is not precious. It is honest.

The Carré and the Runway

Hermès scarves occupy a strange position in the product hierarchy. The first carré appeared in 1937, designed by Robert Dumas, and the house has released two collections a year ever since. Each design goes through months of colour separation and screen printing. A single scarf can require 40 screens. The archive holds over 2,000 designs, most of them still in rotation.

The scarves sell, but they also function as brand language. Hermès doesn't advertise heavily. The carré does that work. It appears in airport duty-free, on vintage resale platforms, in estate sales. It is recognisable without a logo, which is the point. The house trademark — a duc carriage with a horse — appears on the scarf, the box, the ribbon, but never dominates the design.

The ready-to-wear collections follow a similar logic. Vanhee-Cybulski's shows are quiet. Models walk in wool trousers, cashmere sweaters, leather blousons cut with enough ease to move. There are no statement pieces. The press notes cite fabric weights and mill origins. A jacket might be made from 11oz cotton drill or 14oz lambswool melton. The information is specific because the house assumes its audience cares.

Some do. Some buy Hermès for the bag and ignore the clothing. The house seems unbothered by that split. The leather goods division generates roughly half of total revenue, but the maison continues to invest in its textile and ready-to-wear ateliers. It is not trying to become a fashion house. It is trying to remain Hermès.

What the Next Chapter Holds

Axel Dumas has said, in interviews with Le Figaro and Financial Times, that Hermès will not pursue growth for its own sake. The house opens a handful of stores each year, usually in cities where it already has a presence. It does not do collaborations. It does not hire guest designers for capsule collections. It does not release limited-edition sneakers to generate hype.

That restraint has commercial consequences. Hermès cannot scale the way LVMH or Kering brands can. It cannot flood TikTok with unboxing content or seed product to influencers. It can only make what its ateliers can make, which means it will always leave demand unmet.

The question is whether that model survives generational turnover. The family holding structure protects Hermès from hostile acquisition, but it does not guarantee alignment. Sixth-generation members now sit on the board. Some work in the business. Some do not. The house has navigated succession before, but each transition brings risk.

For now, Hermès remains what Thierry Hermès built: a workshop that makes things meant to last. The saddles are gone. The stitch count is not.