Today, we are showcasing the Goat Skin (Chèvre) Bolide 19 from the Shebag artisanal workshop. It is a very popular yet incredibly understated bag. However, crafting this bag to perfection is no easy feat. After years of research, Shebag has finally conquered the challenges of this bag, with the sourcing of the goat skin being the most critical factor.

Goat skin is extremely difficult to custom order at Hermès boutiques due to the scarcity of the leather. However, at Shebag, because our procurement volume is not massive, we are able to select the “best of the best,” allowing us to create custom pieces for our select clientele.

Hermès’ Goat Skin (Chèvre) belongs to a category of leather within their system characterized by an extremely high technical threshold, a highly closed supply chain, and an intensely restrained usage strategy. Its core value lies not in coming from a “rare animal,” but in the fact that every step from source to finished product is actively designed to be unscalable.

At the raw hide level, the goat skin used by Hermès comes primarily from the by-products of local European dairy or meat goats, concentrated in France and neighboring countries. These goats are not bred specifically for leather but are natural by-products of the agricultural system. Goat skins are naturally small, uneven in thickness, and exhibit huge individual variances; they simply do not possess the foundational conditions for industrial mass production. The proportion of raw hides capable of entering the Hermès supply chain is extremely low, creating the first layer of “natural limitation” right at the source.

In the tanning stage, Hermès’ goat skin is custom-finished by a few top-tier European tanneries. These tanneries do not serve the standardized market nor do they accept large-scale replication orders. Goat skin fibers are extremely fine and dense, imposing incredibly harsh requirements on pH control, fat-liquoring ratios, and drum rotation rhythm and timing. A slight deviation can cause the leather surface to become brittle, lose rebound balance, or suffer surface fiber breakage. Hermès’ Chèvre does not pursue “extreme thinness,” but rather a balance between thinness, toughness, and structural stability. This standard alone excludes a vast amount of seemingly high-quality goat skin.

After tanning is complete, the goat skin still undergoes extremely strict manual screening and grading. Hermès’ requirements for Chèvre include: the texture must be fine, dense, and uniform; pores must be clear but not overly protruding; the surface must possess a natural luster rather than a polished look; and it must rebound quickly after stretching without dead creases. At this stage, a large volume of goat skin that is already considered high-end is still eliminated or downgraded, with only a tiny fraction usable for top-tier bags. This makes Chèvre the quintessential “crème de la crème of leathers” within the Hermès system.

Regarding craftsmanship adaptation, goat skin offers advantages such as light weight, high tensile strength, resistance to collapsing over long-term use, and sharp edge paint lines. However, it is also extremely “picky about the artisan.” Because the leather is thin with strong rebound resilience, any uneven stitching tension, stitch spacing deviation, or insufficient folding control is visibly magnified. Therefore, Hermès typically entrusts Chèvre only to deeply experienced artisans and strictly limits the bag styles and sizes for which it is used.

At the usage strategy level, Hermès does not treat goat skin as a primary volume leather. Instead, it positions it as a high-tech, highly recognizable functional material, mainly used for bags that require clear structure, smaller dimensions, and a “light yet stiff” effect—such as small-sized Birkins, Kellys, Mini Kellys, or the Kelly Pochette. The brand does not use Chèvre to expand production volume; on the contrary, it deliberately maintains a low frequency of use, making scarcity a calculated part of the supply chain design.