General · EdgepediaSeptember 17, 20267 min read

Hermès

Hermès International S.A. is a French luxury house founded in Paris in 1837 by Thierry Hermès as a harness and saddlery workshop, and still controlled by his descendants. It now designs and manufactures leather goods and saddlery, ready-to-wear, silk, tableware, jewelry, watches, perfume and other objects across sixteen métiers (Hermès's sixteen craft/product categories), selling through a network of mostly directly operated stores.¹

Key fact	Detail
Founded	1837, Paris, by Thierry Hermès (1801–1878), a harness-maker born in Krefeld, Prussia²^•³
Flagship address	24 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Paris; workshops moved there in 1880¹
2025 revenue	€16 billion, up 9% at constant exchange rates; recurring operating income €6.6 billion, 41% of sales⁴
Production	55% of objects made in in-house and exclusive workshops; 75% manufactured in France, including 100% of leather goods⁵
Workforce	Nearly 26,000 employees worldwide in 2025, over 60% in France; 27,107 at the end of June 2026⁶^•⁷
Stores	294 retail stores worldwide in 2025⁸
Leadership	Axel Dumas, CEO and sixth-generation family member, since 2013⁹
Iconic products	Kelly and Birkin bags, silk carré scarves (first made 1937), Haut à Courroies, Bolide²^•¹⁰

History

The house began in 1837, when Thierry Hermès opened his first workshop of saddlery and harness-making on rue Basse-du-Rempart in Paris.¹ Born in Krefeld in 1801, then part of the French Empire, he had moved to France before setting up the business, where he made harnesses for the carriage-owning elite, hand-sewn with the saddle stitch, a two-needle seam that does not unravel.³ His son Charles-Émile Hermès took over in 1878 and moved the workshops to 24 Faubourg Saint-Honoré, the address the house still occupies, adding a store for bespoke harnesses and saddles supplied to aristocratic stables across Europe.¹

Early twentieth century. Émile-Maurice Hermès, Charles-Émile's son, led the house as travel shifted from horse to automobile, ocean liner and airplane, and the company developed luggage and travel accessories alongside its equestrian lines.² On a 1914 mission to North America studying industrial harness production for the French war ministry, he discovered the sliding fastener later called the zip on a military car in Canada; on returning he acquired exclusive French rights to the device for two years from the British firm Lightning Fastener, and 1920s magazines used the phrase "fermeture Hermès" for zips on objects unrelated to the saddler.¹¹ Under the name Hermès Frères, run by Émile-Maurice and his brother Adolphe, the company introduced the Haut à Courroies bag, originally intended to carry saddles, in the early 1900s, and the Bolide followed in 1923.¹² In 1937, for the house's centenary, the first silk scarf, the carré Jeu des omnibus et dames blanches, was created.¹⁰^•¹²

Later generations. Émile-Maurice passed the business to his son-in-law Robert Dumas; during the 1950s Robert Dumas and Jean-René Guerrand diversified the house into clothing, jewelry, watches, diaries and silk scarves.¹ Jean-Louis Dumas led the house from 1978 to 2006, and in 2006 handed management to Patrick Thomas and the family holding Émile Hermès SARL; Pierre-Alexis Dumas became artistic director in February 2009.¹³^•¹ In autumn 2010 the house faced, and defeated, a hostile takeover attempt by LVMH, the group led by Bernard Arnault, after LVMH had quietly built a stake in Hermès shares.¹³ Since 2013 the CEO has been Axel Dumas, a sixth-generation member of the founding family; the house joined the CAC 40 index in June 2018 and the Euro Stoxx 50 in December 2021.⁹

Iconic products

The Kelly bag began as the Haut à Courroies, a large saddle bag introduced around 1892; its nickname dates to 1956, when Princess Grace of Monaco was photographed on the cover of Life magazine shielding her stomach with the handbag, after which sales took off.² The Birkin bag originated in the mid-1980s from a chance airplane meeting between Jean-Louis Dumas and the actress Jane Birkin, who told him she could not find a suitable carry-all; Dumas sketched her a soft, spacious tote that was introduced in 1984.¹⁴^•² The house's equestrian origins remain a design signature, from the Filet de selle bracelet, its first piece of jewelry, to horse-tack motifs on silk scarves.¹

The house also runs petit h, an upcycling workshop created to give value to leftover materials; its objects, made in small batches, are sold exclusively in the Rue de Sèvres boutique in Paris or through the Hermès online shop.¹⁵

Business model and production

Hermès describes its strategy as resting on three pillars: creation, craftsmanship and an exclusive, balanced distribution network. The collections comprise over 50,000 references developed across the sixteen métiers, and each year a theme guides the artistic directors; the theme for 2025 was "Drawn to craft".¹⁶ Production is deliberately integrated: at the end of 2025 the house had more than 20 leather goods workshops organized around 10 regional centers of expertise that combine production units, workshops and training centers.¹⁶

French manufacturing. In 2024, 55% of products were made in exclusive internal workshops and 75% were manufactured in France.⁵ Production and training take place at 63 sites across France, organized into hubs in 11 regions, supplemented by 16 sites abroad in Switzerland, Italy, the United Kingdom, the United States, Portugal and Australia.⁶ The house has opened an average of one leather goods workshop per year over the last decade; the 23rd, in Riom in central France, opened in September 2024 in a renovated former tobacco factory that cost about €25 million to convert and should employ around 280 people making Constance, Bolide and Birkin bags by hand.¹⁷ The twenty-fourth workshop, in L'Isle-d'Espagnac in Charente, was inaugurated in September 2025, with planned openings in Loupes (2026), Charleville-Mézières (2027) and Colombelles (2028).⁴

Training. To secure its craft workforce, the house opened the École Hermès des savoir-faire in 2021, now running 12 training schools in the French regions that award the CAP vocational qualification in leatherwork; in 2022 it also launched the École des Artisans de la vente in Paris for store sales teams.¹⁶ Analysts of the luxury sector describe the resulting scarcity as credible rather than manufactured: production capacity expands through additional trained craft capability rather than in response to demand alone, which supports exclusivity, pricing power and long customer waiting lists for its most sought-after bags.¹⁸

Financial performance

Hermès has grown steadily while much of the luxury sector slowed after the pandemic-era boom. In 2024 its sales rose 15%, against a 12% decline at Kering and 1% growth at LVMH.¹⁹ In 2025 consolidated revenue reached €16 billion, up 9% at constant exchange rates, with growth across all regions: Asia excluding Japan +5%, Japan +14%, the Americas +12%, Europe excluding France +11% and France +9%.⁴ Recurring operating income was €6.6 billion, 41% of sales, and net profit group share reached €4.5 billion.⁴ First-half 2026 revenue was €8,163 million, up 6.1% at constant exchange rates, and the group reported a restated net cash position of €12,926 million.⁷^•²⁰

That margin, sustained at around 41%, is markedly higher than LVMH's 22.5% and Kering's 12.8% in the first half of 2026.²⁰ On 15 April 2025 Hermès briefly took from LVMH the position of largest market capitalization on the CAC 40.²¹ Growth has nonetheless decelerated: in the first quarter of 2026 constant-currency sales rose 6%, below the high-single-digit growth of the prior year, with leather goods up 9%, ready-to-wear and perfume flat, and watches declining; the group's Middle East sales exposure is 4%, the lowest among its peers.²²

New directions. In February 2025 executive chairman Axel Dumas announced that the house intends to enter haute couture "toward 2026-2027", applying to show during Paris Haute Couture Week, while ruling out the eyewear and hotel markets its rivals have entered.¹⁹

Independence and ownership

Hermès remains an independent, family-owned house supported by a family shareholding structure; roughly 100 heirs have remained shareholders.⁹^•²³ Employee ownership is also broad: six free share plans have been implemented since 2007, and at the end of 2024, 70% of Hermès employees were shareholders.⁹

References

Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 19, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026