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How Grace Kelly gave the Hermès Kelly bag its enduring style status
Could the Hermès Kelly actually overtake the Birkin in the popularity stakes? For many, it’s the most trivial question you’ll consider today, but for handbag feinds and luxury collectors, it’s one that could inform an upcoming investment, or at least prompt a dreamy new Pinterest wish list.
According to Jérome Lalande, a leather goods expert at Collector Square who has collaborated with Hermès for twenty years to help locate rare pieces, new data shows that the Kelly is having a comeback, with prices up 350% in the last decade and popularity surging in the last year. “The Birkin bag was the most in-demand Hermès bag, but the past year has shown a reversal of the trend, putting the Kelly bag in the spotlight,” he explains. Kellies accounted for 24% of all Hermès bags sold at auctions in the last decade, while Birkins fell slightly behind at 20%, according to Collector Square’s LuxPrice-Index.
It’s the story that’s selling it, according to the experts. The bag’s design was originally inspired by the saddle bags created for horse riders in the 1880s before Hermés revamped it as the Sac à Courroies in the 1930s. The actress Grace Kelly was first associated with the style after she was spotted carrying one on the set of To Catch a Thief in 1954.
Two years later, though, she sealed its status as an icon (and its name) when she used one to shield her pregnant stomach from the paparazzi as she announced her engagement to Prince Rainier of Monaco. Hermés made the name change official in 1977, and the Sac à Courroies became the Kelly forevermore.
Hermes Kelly 40 cm handbag in grey togo leather, £8,080, collectorsquare.com
When the Birkin, inspired by Jane Birkin, came along in 1985, though, the Kelly had competition. "At the beginning the [Birkin] bag was not a success,” Lalande told The Telegraph. “When it was first produced 1985 it wasn't really in demand and not that many people knew about it. Then everyone was still asking about the Kelly.”
"The craziness about the Birkin began in the mid 90s. It's like the Rolex watch, we don't know exactly why it became just so popular. I think when people started to be interested in buying Birkin bags, Hermes limited the production which increased the demand even more."
Celebrities have, however, expressed a heightened interest in Birkins over the last decade. The Birkin has become a status symbol, with stars from Victoria Beckham to Kim Kardashian boasting big collections of both new and vintage bags. New Kellys, meanwhile, currently have a waiting list of over a year - perhaps they are now seen as the more exclusive, lesser-spotted choice?
"[Both] bags are very expensive, but people purchase them as both a pleasure and investment, they are looking for the best value for money - and that comes from Hermes first and foremost," says Lalande of the fact that both the Kelly and the Birkin have consistently appreciated in value in the last decade, unlike most other luxury goods.
Instagram audiences have now shared and tagged over 3.4million pictures of the #HermesKelly on the social media site, only 200,000 behind the #HermesBirkin. Many of those images shared are the now-vintage snaps of the bag’s original champion, Grace Kelly, wearing hers with white driving gloves, giant sunglasses and an enormous coat draped over her shoulders.