HERMÈS HISTORY

HERMÈS HISTORY

It’s one of the most popular bags of all time, one of those few that can be called by name. Owning a Kelly bag demonstrates not only that you are a successful woman, it also means touching with your hand an icon, owning a small pieces of fashion history. Fashion house Hermès was born as a saddler’s shop, founded in 1837 by Thierry Hermès, a harness maker, who opened a shop in Paris for horse harnesses and saddles. Later, in 1870, his successors moved the business to rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, in the location that has become iconic and that is, still today, the maison’s headquarters. In the Twenties Emile-Maurice Hermès, grandson of the founder, purchased his brother Adolphe’s share of the company and started to create items in deerskin. The following decade the business grew greatly as did the designs, which launched the company and made it a reference point in the history of fashion. With the invention and development of cars, Emile focused on the creation of leather accessories. His idea was: be chic while riding your car.

This is how the first model of Hermès bags was born. It was a simple bag, without frills, thought out to be set on the car’s door, designed by Emile and Ettore Bugatti. The forefather of the Hermès bag collections will inspire the future Kelly, the famous "sac haut à courroie" (saddle bag) becomes famous afterwards. The Kelly is a trapezoid-shaped bag, comfortable, with a hard bottom and a closing system with straps. This "passé-partout" bag can be put down on the ground thanks to the four feet that protect its bottom part. Sober and little inclined to be rested on knees, it’s perfect for traveling. After all, the first version was covered in morocco leather, like a travel bag, and it has, even today, a lock to close it with a key. The beginnings, therefore, are not particularly luxurious for this bag that will later become a classic of timeless luxury. It was not until a princess and a photo published by Life magazine in 1956 that the fate of the Kelly bag changed. It is said that Grace Kelly, then Princess of Monaco, tryed to hide the roundness of her pregnancy behind this great model of Hermès handbag. What is not said, however, is that the Princess had ordered half a dozen of them: in black leather, honey-colored, brown, Hermès red, and dark green.That picture had a huge impact.

All the chicest women that followed trends started the race to have this bag, and then renamed it Kelly, in honor of the beautiful American princess. However, the bag started to be called officially by this name only about twenty years ago. Today, the Kelly “family” has a wide range of models: eight sizes, from the Kelly 50 (cm), to the Kelly-Mini Mini (15 cm), it can be made in about twenty different materials, leather, ostrich, crocodile, lizard, all Hermès colors, including a set of three nuances, and it can be made in more than 200 possible combinations. It has also been thought out for several occasions: for sport, to wear in the city or for evening, with gold and diamond jewel closing, the Kelly is versatile, omnipresent, because there is one for all the moments of a woman’s life. The Kelly Ado was created in 1995 to meet the needs of new teenage customers. The Shoulder Kelly, developed in length to be worn under the arm, has been revisited by Jean-Paul Gaultier for his first prêt-à-porter fashion show for fall-winter 2004. More recently, the designer has once again played with this great classic and, for the prêt-à-porter fashion show spring-summer 2007, he created the Kelly Flat. Again, this bag has been reinvented in a totally unstructured version: soft, rolled, tied with a belt to replace the straps.