The Bag Stores Will Not Allow You Buy except You Are An A-Lister – A Hermès Birkin

 The immaculately turned-out shop assistant in the Hermes concession at Harrods is adamant. ‘I am sorry, madam, we can’t take an order and there is no waiting list,’ she snaps. ‘When they do arrive, they just fly out of the shop. To be honest, it is not easy to get one. Good luck.’

On London’s Sloane Street, awash with wealthy Arab women and designer shops, it’s the same story. A liveried doorman waves me into the gleaming Hermes emporium and I make my way to the handbag display.

But when I announce ‘I’d like to buy a Birkin handbag, please,’ the sales assistant raises an eyebrow and a chill seems to fall around the counter.

For this is no normal shopping experience. This is what happens when an ordinary woman like me asks for the handbag money can’t buy.

Commonly spotted hanging off the arms of celebrities such as Victoria Beckham, the Hermes Birkin and VB’s other favourite, the single-handled Hermes Kelly, are the ultimate in designer arm-candy.

Costing an eye-watering £6,000-plus each, these bags are so covetable, they are said to be a better investment than stocks and shares – for unlike a new car or piece of jewellery, they appreciate in value the moment you buy them. Just one problem: you have to get hold of one in the first place.

Auction house expert Max Brownawell explains: ‘Your average woman can’t just walk into Hermes and buy one. You’d have to have a long-standing relationship with one of their sales associates.’

This exclusivity and the subsequent mystique that surrounds the Birkin and Kelly has proved to be a phenomenally successful marketing trick.

Where other designer brands have become tacky and ubiquitous, Hermes alone, it seems, has been able to control access to its handbags to the point where they are badges of wealth even for the super-rich. Naturally, they are popular with the A list.

Kate Moss has a Birkin in denim, and celebrity fans include Elle Macpherson, Naomi Campbell and Sarah Jessica Parker, who between them have Birkins in all the colours of the rainbow, in skins from ostrich to crocodile, and price tags reaching up to £35,000.

Legend has it that the Birkin was born when the eponymous Jane Birkin, actress love of Je t’aime singer Serge Gainsbourg, was seated next to Hermes CEO Jean-Louis Dumas on a flight. She carried a tatty, over-filled straw bag and said she could never find a decent handbag. Dumas invited her to his workshop and the prototype was conceived. The rest is history.

The Kelly bag has just as glamorous a tale behind it. Originally designed as a saddle-bag in about 1892, it is named after the film star Grace Kelly, wife of Prince Rainier of Monaco, because she fell in love with one used as a prop during filming of Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch A Thief.

Source: DailyMail