In a 2013 interview, Patrick Thomas, the now former CEO of Hermès, expressed his reservations of those who call the brand « luxury ». « In Latin, the word luxus has two meanings. The first one is displaying the wealth, and the second one is sophistication». He suggests that there exist two aspects of the luxury market:glamour and sophistication, and « Hermès stands firmly on the second market ».

Started from the high-quality saddlery maker, Hermès caught up with the new sportification of the Nouveau Rich in the era of industrial revolution. It applicated the family craftsmanship unto their products, creating many series of items with elegance and functionality. It’s because of this unwavering position that celebrities like princess Kelly would keep her Hermès product close, or even, as the legend goes, a former CEO would create a product line to accommodate the daily needs of the singer Jane Birkin. The Kelly and Birkin product lines became the hottest items in the world, so much so that rumors began to flow between the collectors, as they should adapt to secret rules in order to acquire the rarest of Hermès bags:buying all that is recommended by the clerks, maintain a great relationship with them, being registered on the hidden VIP list, and recognizing that the brand is deliberately hungering the market…Yet when responding to such questions by the reporter, Mr. Thomas insisted that « we have 2,000 artisans, who are training 200 more each year», the limit of the supply is purely due to their stubbornly hand-made processes. Furthermore, « Instead of satisfying the demands, we anticipate the desires », so « our prêtà-porter has to be contemporary and being able to be worn after twenty years ». Never chasing blindly the production goals, and focusing constantly on the design and craftsmanship, all these make Hermès stand tall among all the high-end luxury brands, and they never dropped the consumers’loyalty as such.

Take an example, the Birkin product line. A basic bag in the boutique could cost from 7,000 euros and up according to the accessories. Yet the scarcity and uniqueness to each bag due to the handmade process can further the value-adding potential. The record-making 2006 three color Birkin was sold by $83,391;while a year before, a crocodile porosus red Birkin with a diamond on the buckle was sold by $203,150. Fast forward to 2018, a 2014 *Himalaya* Nile crocodile Birkin with diamonds became global famous with the result of 380,000. As the matter of fact, when observing the 40-year trend, a media investigation found that a classic Hermès bag could have more value-adding potential than gold and several biggest stock market indexes.

The Exquisite craftsmanship of leather products and their timeless style, let even a historian claim that the aesthetics of the 19th-century bourgeois arguably survived in Paris through Hermès. In other respects, the brand has already accomplished a global outreach even before the WWI. Its marketing force never stopped and, as today, the revenue in east Asia is mounted to 150% of that in Europe. This further proves that in the Asian market, we haven’t seen the full potential of value in the Hermès classics.