Hermès: From Paris Saddlery to the Silk Scarf

THE COUNTRYLOOK WARDROBE   /   HOUSE HISTORIES

A horse's harness and a silk scarf ought not to have much in common. At Hermès, I found the connection in the care given to how an object moves.

The first time I unfolded one of the house's printed squares, I found myself studying the border before the centre. It was the sort of detail I had previously passed over in a photograph: the printed line still had to make sense when the cloth moved and half the picture disappeared. Hermès invites an easy vocabulary of 'icons' and 'exclusivity'. I prefer the more exacting story. A harness must carry weight on a moving horse without chafing or failing. Its success is measured in use, not applause. Once I understood that origin, the later silk and leather objects became much more interesting to me.

I trace the house backwards from that square of silk to Thierry Hermès, who opened a Paris harness workshop on rue Basse-du-Rempart in 1837. The generations that followed moved into saddles, securely closing travel bags, golf jackets, jewellery and printed silk. I like the untidy logic of the expansion: each new object arose from a changing way of travelling, dressing or carrying things. It is a better account of the business than the notion that every new accessory was somehow destined to be a collectible. Price and usefulness do not always travel together.

My interest is the connection to a British country wardrobe: travel, horses, good hardware and an object that improves an ordinary day. I want to know where a scarf is made, how a bag opens when one hand is full, whether leather can be repaired, and why one version suits a real person better than another. An orange box is pleasant to receive. I have yet to find it useful for carrying the contents of a handbag.

1837: a harness-maker on a changing Paris street

I keep returning to the image of a harness laid across a workbench: leather chosen for a job, stitching that must hold, a shape measured against movement. Thierry Hermès's workshop opened on rue Basse-du-Rempart in 1837 to serve the horses and carriages of a changing Paris. The house's account emphasises simplicity, lightness and endurance, and records recognition at the Paris Universal Exhibition in 1867. Those are the details I trust. The assertion that he dressed 'the aristocracy' sounds glamorous, but tells me very little about how his products worked.

I picture the move in 1880 as a change in the front door as much as the business itself. Charles-Émile Hermès took the workshops to 24 Faubourg Saint-Honoré and opened a shop offering made-to-measure harnesses and saddles. It is an address now endowed with enormous prestige; I find it more useful to imagine the earlier customer arriving with a practical problem involving a horse. The equipment had to fit before anybody could admire it. That order of priorities, I think, is still the right one for a luxury purchase.

The horse motifs stopped looking decorative to me once I followed the dates. A bridle, a carriage or a beautifully arranged harness is a memory of the work, not simply an equestrian flourish chosen to suit a season. I can appreciate the elaborate drawings without mistaking nostalgia for evidence of quality. The important question is whether the precision of the old trade survives in how the modern object is designed and made.

What happened when the horse ceased to be the whole business?

One detail from 1922 made me smile because it is so stubbornly practical. Hermès's chronology says Émile Hermès encountered a fastening in Canada and secured rights to develop the zip. Travellers needed their belongings to stay inside their bags. That is the whole unglamorous point. I think of the frustration of wrestling with a beautiful bag that takes two hands to close, and suddenly this small piece of technical history seems more consequential than a great many famous buckles. The shift from saddles to travel was not a single effortless leap; it was a series of useful experiments.

I had assumed the wardrobe came as a complete idea. The dates disabused me: a men's ready-to-wear golf jacket in 1925, jewellery in 1927, watches and sandals in 1928, and only in 1967 the first women's ready-to-wear collection, under Catherine Karolyi. I like those odd intervals. They give the house the shape of a working business making decisions as the world changes, rather than a mythology in which every product was always there.

Robert Dumas, Émile Hermès's son-in-law, keeps appearing at the moments I find most revealing. The house credits him with key developments including the scarf, the Kelly bag and the Chaîne d'ancre bracelet, its chain links inspired by boats moored in Normandy. I find myself following that little path from a working object to something worn for pleasure. It is an eye for shapes that already have a reason to exist, and that is much more interesting than simply making a logo conspicuous.

THE HOUSE IN SEVEN DATES

1. 1837 — Thierry Hermès opens his Paris harness workshop.
2. 1880 — The business moves to 24 Faubourg Saint-Honoré.
3. 1922 — Émile Hermès brings the zip-fastener idea into the house's work.
4. 1925 — A golf jacket marks its first men's ready-to-wear garment.
5. 1937 — The first silk carré, Jeu des omnibus et dames blanches.
6. 1956 — Grace Kelly's public association makes the 1930s bag a phenomenon.
7. 1984 — The Birkin begins with a conversation on a Paris–London flight.

1937: the printed square changes everything

I spread a square scarf out flat and try to imagine which part of it I will actually see once it is tied. In 1937 Hermès introduced its first silk carré, Jeu des omnibus et dames blanches, created, according to the house history, by Robert Dumas. The drawing borrows from a game and fits a dense little world inside the square. I love the fact that the best designs give you several compositions from the same fabric. An expensive scarf is not much use if its one magnificent central image vanishes into the knot.

I twist a scarf once, then fold it into a narrow band, and discover how merciless the format can be. Colours that work beautifully when the square lies flat may disappear; a border suddenly becomes the whole picture. That is the first discipline of a carré's design. The other is translating drawing into print: Hermès describes engraving specialists separating colours and preparing individual screens. Its examples may involve roughly 25 to 30 colours, with particularly complex designs reaching 48. I think about the registration of all those layers rather than treating printed silk as a digital image on cloth.

I run my fingers towards the rolled edge first. The company describes silk-screen printing in the Lyon region, colour applied sequentially to silk twill before fixing, washing, finishing and hand-rolling the hem. Under close inspection, I look for clean colour registration, crisp outlines and a border that still looks composed when folded. None of those observations requires the print to be loud. A quiet square with a beautifully judged edge is often the one I keep coming back to.

I hold a 90 × 90cm square against my shoulder and it behaves nothing like a narrow silk ribbon. Hermès makes several formats, so I check the exact size and composition on a particular product listing rather than treating 'silk scarf' as one standard object. Silk twill has a different hand and drape from chiffon; a long narrow piece cannot be knotted like a full carré. I think about the coat collars and colours already in my wardrobe before falling for an archive illustration. The picture may be extraordinary; it still has to be something I want to wear.

We have examined the wider British relationship with scarves in our history of silk scarves. The connection to Hermès is worth making, but the French house's manufacturing story is its own: the company states that its silk ties and scarves are woven and printed in its production facilities in the Lyon region. It would be misleading to label them British-made because they appeal to a British country wardrobe.

The Kelly and the Birkin: two bags built around different lives

I do not put the Kelly and the Birkin in the same category just because both are famous. Set side by side, they ask for quite different habits. One is structured and deliberate; the other began as an answer to the messy business of carrying everyday things.

The Kelly is the one I instinctively handle more carefully. Robert Dumas designed the structured bag in the 1930s, and the photograph of Grace Kelly carrying it in 1956 helped turn it into an international phenomenon. The form is beautifully resolved: sharp lines, a distinctive fastening, a handle that gives the whole thing poise. But I notice the small inconvenience of a formal closure when I imagine reaching for keys for the twentieth time in a day. Elegance and ease are not always the same thing.

The Birkin, by contrast, makes sense to me as a bag born from inconvenience. Hermès records that Jane Birkin, seated next to Jean-Louis Dumas on a 1984 Paris–London flight, described her difficulty finding a bag for life with a young child. He sketched a roomy holdall, with saddle stitching and space for feeding bottles. I think of the bags I actually reach for on a busy morning: they are the ones that swallow a book, the awkward extras and the last-minute addition. The world may now treat a Birkin as a trophy; its origin was strikingly down to earth.

When I choose between the two ideas, I start with the ordinary motions of a day. How quickly do I get into it? Is the weight pleasant once the bag is full? Do the handles sit comfortably? Where do keys and a notebook go? The Kelly has a controlled, formal shape; the Birkin is conceived as a generous carryall. Both come in various sizes and materials. I would spend far longer considering those details than counting how many times a bag appears in a celebrity photograph.

I have no patience with the claim that a Birkin is automatically an investment. I could fall in love with the leather, the proportions and the workmanship, and still decide I do not want to spend that money. Resale outcomes change with condition, provenance, model, demand and selling costs. There is nothing shameful about choosing a beautiful object simply for the years of use it might give. I prefer that honest calculation to the idea that a handbag owes its owner a return.

Where Hermès makes things—and why the distinction matters

I have learnt to ask what people mean when they call something handmade. With Hermès, there is more useful information available than the word alone: the company says its leather goods are made by specialist leather craftspeople in France, its silk ties and scarves woven and printed in the Lyon region, and other skills drawn from places including Swiss watchmaking and Scottish wool. I find that geography reassuring precisely because it is specific. One imagined Paris workshop making everything would be a much prettier, and much less truthful, picture.

Looking at the stitching on a leather bag, I see the link to saddlery more clearly than in any horse motif. Cutting, assembly and saddle stitching are skills with histories far older than this brand. I will not credit Hermès with inventing the stitch or pretend one pair of hands necessarily makes every component. What interests me is whether a house can train craftspeople, maintain standards and put an old technique to work on an object that must be carried rather than admired behind glass.

I am inclined to forgive leather the small evidence of being used; I am less inclined to forgive vague promises about service. Hermès offers assessment, repair and refurbishment, but its guidance is clear that an item must be taken to a store for consideration and an estimate. That is a possibility, not an unlimited lifetime guarantee. I keep leather away from prolonged heat, humidity and direct light, and avoid improvised treatments that may do more harm than good. A bag's ownership begins after the orange tissue has been folded away.

A silk square demands a different kind of care. I have watched rain darken fine fabric and know better than to treat printed silk as an all-weather country head covering. Hermès advises professional dry cleaning and care around hand-rolled hems, and warns that rain can damage the print. I enjoy wearing a scarf; I simply do not expect it to behave like wool. Materials have limits, and knowing them makes the choice more satisfying.

What I check before buying an Hermès scarf or bag

I can admire almost everything about an Hermès shop window and still walk away from the wrong object. Before buying, I think about the clothes I already wear, what I carry, how I travel and how patient I am with maintenance. Price does not remove those questions. It makes them rather more important.

THE COUNTRYLOOK BUYING CHECK

For a silk scarf: Confirm the precise design, dimensions, fibre, colourway and condition of the hand-rolled hem. An appealing archive print may not suit the colours somebody actually wears.

For a leather bag: Assess the weight, handles, opening, inner capacity, leather type and care expectations. Carrying a bag is a physical experience, not a photograph.

If buying second-hand: Ask for clear documentation and detailed images of wear. Use a reputable seller with a credible authentication and returns process. An orange box or dust bag is not proof of authenticity.

For repairs: Ask Hermès or an appropriate specialist about possible work and the estimated cost. A repair may be possible, but do not assume a free or immediate service.

On price: Buy the object because you intend to enjoy it, not because someone has assured you it will appreciate in value.

The Countrylook view: the best Hermès story is the least mysterious one

I am tempted by the romance of Hermès, but I like its less mysterious history better. A Paris saddler established a workshop in 1837. Another generation recognised the usefulness of a zip. Designers turned working hardware and equestrian images into jewellery, bags and silk. Craftspeople developed the skills to translate dense drawings into printed cloth. I find that chain of decisions more compelling than the theatre of scarcity. It gives me something tangible to judge rather than merely something expensive to covet.

When I knot a scarf, I see only fragments of the design; when I lift a bag, I learn its weight and whether the opening suits my hands. Those are the moments in which I make up my mind. I want precise provenance, thoughtful construction, realistic repair options and a piece that belongs in my wardrobe. The story of Hermès is extraordinary. The test of an object is still what happens when I take it out into an ordinary day.