The Shebag workshop recently customized several handmade Hermès bags for clients, including the Picotin 18, Birkin 25, and Garden Party. The Birkin is forever the most classic Hermès bag and remains perpetually popular in the market; it is the bag Shebag replicates the most.

Hermès reserves its best leather for Birkin bags, and so does Shebag. Although there are many tanneries that supply exclusively to Hermès for Birkin leather, a portion of this leather always leaks into the leather market. These hides usually command the highest prices. Shebag frequently procures this authentic-grade leather, having partnered with European leather merchants for over a decade.

The leather supply chain for Birkin bags is characterized by high monopolization, strong control, and significant long-termism. Its operational logic differs distinctly from the “procurement-based” supply chains of general luxury brands, resembling instead a vertically integrated system centered on raw materials. Its core is not merely acquiring leather, but systematically shaping, screening, and locking in the leather supply best suited for the Birkin right from the resource source.

Regarding supply chain structure, Hermès does not primarily rely on purchasing finished leather from the open market. Instead, it deeply intervenes in the tanning process through holdings, equity participation, and long-term exclusive partnerships. The company owns or controls several key tanneries in France and Italy, with the core capacity of some serving Hermès almost exclusively. In this way, Hermès effectively controls critical process nodes from raw hide to finished leather, making it difficult for external brands to obtain leather of the same grade and stability, even if they have the funds.

In terms of raw hide sources, the leather used for the Birkin is not selected after tanning is complete, but is effectively “reverse-defined” during the livestock breeding stage. Cowhides for Birkins mostly come from small farms in France, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, where livestock have longer growth cycles and ample space, with strict requirements avoiding intensive farming methods. Any wire scratches, insect bites, bruises, or abnormalities in the skin structure are eliminated during early screening. For exotic leathers like crocodile and ostrich, Hermès directly participates in investing in or managing the breeding systems, controlling animal species, stocking density, and growth environments from the source to ensure predictability in the leather’s size, symmetry, and structural stability.

Regarding the quality control system, Hermès adopts internal grading mechanisms far above industry standards. Even leather recognized as top-tier within the industry might only be classified as medium or lower grade upon entering the Hermès system. In principle, one whole cowhide is used to make only one Birkin bag; any regional flaw will cause the entire hide to be downgraded or even scrapped. Aesthetic grain is not the only standard; more important are the stability of texture distribution, surface resilience, and long-term shape retention. This extremely conservative screening mechanism dictates that the proportion of leather truly usable for a Birkin is extremely low.

Regarding leather processing and color management, Hermès controls color even more strictly than the leather quality itself. The leather is assigned a color and purpose before tanning, with different skin types, colors, and years strictly divided into different batches. If a slight color deviation occurs after tanning, that batch will be downgraded for use in other product lines and will not enter Birkin production. This system makes certain leather colors highly scarce in certain years and directly leads to noticeable differences in touch and appearance between Birkins of different years and batches, even if the leather type is the same.