23 insider tips for buying a used Hermes bag

- and my secret theory that ALL bags are actually old Hermes bags

(note: This is long and chock full of info! Be sure to click that thing that lets you expand the email length you see.)

So I don’t need to tell you that The Row Margaux has taken hold. Or more literally, fashion lovers have taken hold of it. Including many of my friends. And it’s spawned some comparisons to the Hermes Birkin. I don’t see that, except in the sense that it’s double handled, capacious, open, and requires a crook-of-the arm hold (this is why I don’t own either). But I think it actually looks more like the Hermes Atlas, which, from what I can tell, was a fairly short lived H bag (heavy, I’ve heard). That’s it, below, on the right.

image from The Row (L) and Vestiare, R.

I didn’t think much of this coincidence when I first noticed it.

But then I started seeing the H influence everywhere.

The Row Idaho (R) looks a lot like the Hermes Paris Bombay. Both friends so horizontal they get cut off here.

The Row India (R) looks a lot like an Hermes Bolide.

And of course it’s not just The Row.

The new shapes at Prada and Alaia, for example, look a lot like the Hermes abbreviated JPG version of the Birkin.

And come to think of it, the Bottega Hop even reminds me of the Hermes cut Masai:

I could go on. I don’t imagine anyone designing these new bags is getting inspired by the older Hermes bags, at least not in a conscious way. But what’s more interesting to me is that because the Hermes “originals” are generally older, they often cost less. I mean, relatively speaking. And are also around less, which is nice if you prefer to have things others don’t or if your eye tires from seeing lots of anything.

And I realized that I actually know a fair bit about buying used Hermes bags; in fact, I’ve never bought one new, and I do have more than I thought before I started writing this. So I figured I’d share my tips on buying used Hermes by way of my first hand shopping experiences. And then, as a part 2, I spoke to a collector who buys hers new (!) for that POV. So here we go.