HERMES (Photo: X)
Last week, Hermes held one of its famously secretive private sales in Paris, invite-only, and the guest list keeps getting smaller. While that was happening, prices for their leather goods and ready-to-wear crept up again, according to Glitz. The timing wasn’t random.
This wasn’t just another routine price bump. Hermes is sending a message: they’re clamping down even harder on who gets in, how rare the products are, and what it all means for your status.
Hermes has always thrived on being out of reach, especially when it comes to their holy grail items, the Birkin and Kelly bags. Inside the company, people call them “quota bags.”
You’ll never see them sitting in a display case. You can’t even order one like you would anything else. Most boutiques have a few stashed away, but only the right sales associate or manager decides who gets to see them.
These days, landing a Birkin or Kelly is way harder than just showing up at a boutique. In Paris, you have to score a “leather appointment” first, and that only gives you the right to ask for a bag.
Since 2019, Hermes has run a lottery for these appointments at its busiest locations like Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Avenue George V, and Rue de Sèvres.
But even if you win the lottery, that doesn’t mean you’ll actually get a bag. Store managers still call the shots. They have strict daily and monthly quotas.
Staff are actually told not to get too friendly, because if management thinks a relationship is too close, they start worrying about favouritism or reselling.
It creates this weird kind of mistrust. Instead of the warm, personal touch luxury shopping promises, things can feel stiff and guarded.
From Hermes’s perspective, there’s a reason for all this. Their whole brand is built on control. It’s not just about selling you a bag; it’s about keeping that aura of scarcity alive.
With the second-hand luxury market booming and tougher anti-money-laundering rules, Hermes has gotten even more cautious.
As one sales associate told Glitz, “Every new client is automatically a suspect.” Staff now check everything—your address, how “prestigious” it seems, your social media, your online footprint.
They’re trained to spot whether your shopping habits make sense. If you suddenly buy a bunch of non-quota bags just to hit a spending target, that’s suspicious.
The sales associates feel the heat, too. Over the last two years, Hermes has cracked down with stricter oversight, investigating and even punishing staff suspected of helping resellers or taking bribes. Models that used to be easier to get, like the Constance, are now treated like quota bags, too. The pressure is everywhere on both sides of the counter.
Associates in France and in a large part of Europe are not paid on an individual commission basis. Rather, commissions are pooled on the boutique level and the quota-bag sales are not included in the performance measures.
This will avoid encouragement to push these bags; instead, restraint is encouraged. Even gifts from clients are checked.
The sale of a quota bag now needs a lot of justification and managerial approval. Associates report being overpoliced and facing severe repercussions in case of misjudging.
Follow-up is followed up even after the sale. The teams monitor the resale websites actively, and in case the bag is sold again, the client will be blacklisted, and the associate will be punished. Exotic leather bags are photographed and stored in various angles to facilitate the accurate identification in future.
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