Hermès Birkins may be costly — but they aren’t expensive.
Or so says the luxury brand’s artistic director Pierre-Alexis Dumas.
“The cost is the actual price of making an object properly with the required level of attention so that you have an object of quality,” Dumas said in a recent segment of CBS’ “60 Minutes.”
“Expensive is a product, which is not delivering what it’s supposed to deliver, but you’ve paid quite a large amount of money for it, and then it betrays you. That’s expensive.”
A large sum of cash isn’t the only thing eager customers have to have to get their hands on a Birkin, which costs at least $9,000 off the shelf or tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars on auction or resale.
They need unlimited time, too.
The brand’s boutiques are usually out of stock of the enviable Birkin bags, which are available in limited quantities due to the high level of craftsmanship necessary to stitch them by hand.
When asked how exactly the world’s most fashionable can purchase a Birkin, Dumas told CBS that they “have to be patient.”
“You go to a store. You get an appointment. You meet a salesperson. You talk about what you want. It’s not available. You’ll have to wait. They’ll come back to you. It takes a long time,” he explained.
“Eventually, it’s gonna happen.”
Dumas debunked the age-old myth that the Hermès handbags are an exclusive club.
For years, rumors have swirled that claimed the luxe label only offers its highly coveted bags to devout customers who spend a certain dollar amount, or that the brand has created an illusion of scarcity.
Dumas insists this is not the case.
“It makes me smile that this is — a diabolical — marketing idea that can only come out of people obsessed with marketing,” he said. “But we don’t have a marketing department at Hermès.”
He added: “Whatever we have, we put on the shelf, and it goes.”
The reality is much less sexy than an intricate marketing ploy: The supply doesn’t keep up with the demand.
Dumas likened the business to “an old lady with startup issues,” saying that the only way to match the brand’s rapid growth in such a short period of time is to train more people.
In the brand’s nearly two dozen workshops across France, there is no assembly line nor factory machinery, rather, Hermès handbags are made by hand by a single artisan who has mastered the art of the saddle stitch and memorized how to make a bag without written instruction.
Becoming a bag maker for Hermès is “a life profession,” explained Dumas.
“They will finish their career at Hermès,” he added.
CBS spoke with one artisan named Amandine, who was completing a Kelly, one of the most difficult Hermès handbags to make with four hours dedicated just to the handle, the outlet reported.
The entire bag takes around 20 hours to make — and won’t be speeding up anytime soon.
“We’re about craft. We’re not machines,” said Dumas, encouraging prospective customers to practice patience. “And we are not compromising on the quality of the way we make the bags.”
He added: “You cannot compress time, at one point, without compromising on quality.”
