The MyQuotaBag Heritage Library
A drawing that catches your eye. A gesture you learn to notice. A piece you hope to pass on. Explore the stories behind the objects and the reasons we make room for them in our lives.
Eight periods
1837–1879The workshop years
1880–1921A new address, wider horizons
1922–1936Designing for modern life
1937–1955A house of many métiers
1956–1983Objects become icons
1984–1996The Birkin years and a wider design culture
1997–2013A new creative conversation
2014–2026Heritage in the presentImages for 1922–1936, 1937–1955, 1956–1983, 1984–1996, 1997–2013, 2014–2026 are AI-generated illustrations for MyQuotaBag, not archives or Hermès objects. The others are museum images credited on their pages.
Moments
Look a little closer
A familiar object can invite an unfamiliar question. What shaped it? Who contributed to it? Which part of its story is documented and which remains open? The pleasure of discovery leaves room for both knowledge and curiosity.
Follow the thread
Start with a moment, then follow what changes. Read the history in chapters, with room for the people, choices and changing ways of life behind the objects. Dates give the journey its shape; the stories give you a reason to keep going. Choose a period or begin with the question that brought you here.
Look beyond the fold
Begin with a drawing that catches your eye. Follow its credited artist, look closely at the details and keep the design distinct from the different pieces that carry it. This is an invitation to discover connections, one carefully documented example at a time. An open question can be a useful place to begin.
An object, closely read
What makes a shape stay with us? Begin with a creation, then follow its documented story: the idea, the details and the meanings people bring to it. Look beyond recognition to discover what deserves a second glance. Read each object in its own context, with clear distinctions between its origins, later versions and the stories told about it.
Notice the work
Look a little closer at a seam, an edge or a change of material. Understanding a gesture can change the way you see an object. Explore making, care and repair through precise accounts, with room for limits as well as possibilities. The pleasure is in learning to notice, rather than collecting impressive numbers.
Meet the people behind the piece
A name beside a drawing can become the beginning of another journey. Explore creative work through the people connected to it: their documented choices, ideas and contributions. Follow a credit into a story, then return to the object with a little more to see. A portrait can begin with the work without pretending to tell an entire life.
What we choose to keep
A collection can begin with a color, a memory or the pleasure of looking closely. Here, the interest is in the person and what an object comes to mean. Discover published stories of attachment, care and collecting. Consider what you would want someone else to know about a piece you hope to pass on.
Go to the source
Stay curious beyond the page. Follow the original publications, museum records and films selected to accompany the stories. Each reference should help you see where a detail comes from and what remains open. A film is another way to look, while a source is an invitation to check, compare and continue your own discovery.
Start with a chapter
Read the story
Thierry Hermès began with harnesses in 1837. The first chapter belongs to working leather, a changing Paris and the move to Faubourg Saint-Honoré.
Read the story
Bags, fasteners, golf clothes and beachwear reveal how Hermès widened its purpose during the first decades of the twentieth century.
Read the story
Silk, perfume, jewelry and clothing broadened Hermès without making its leather heritage disappear.
Another way to begin
Read the story
An introduction to Hermès through clothing, scent, jewelry, timepieces and objects for living.
Read the story
Collecting as attention: preserving useful records, personal memories and room for the next owner to make a different story.
Read the story
A portrait of Jean-Louis Dumas through photography, creative choices and the objects that connect them.
Read the story
Casting, a deep neckline and a transformable trench reveal the practical imagination behind Margiela’s Hermès wardrobe.
Read the story
A mooring chain becomes a bracelet: looking at Robert Dumas’s Chaîne d’ancre through movement, repetition and a change of scale.
Read the story
Henri d’Origny’s 1978 Arceau turns a strap attachment and leaning numerals into a distinctive way of imagining time.
Read the story
A shop window, an exhibition and the problem of preserving a temporary world.
Read the story
Barénia brings leather, scent and bottle design into a conversation without making them the same thing.
Read the story
A perforated letter, an unlined interior and a shoulder strap preserve a working relationship with the stable.
Archives & films
Archive imageAlexandre Pau de Saint-Martin, Boulevard des Capucines and rue Basse-du-Rempart, 1818–1820.Alexandre Pau de Saint-Martin, P752. Paris Musées / Musée Carnavalet – Histoire de Paris. CC0 1.0. Unmodified museum reproduction.View the original 
Archive imageJean Barry, rue Basse-du-Rempart, Paris, June 1901.Jean Barry, PH81649. Paris Musées / Musée Carnavalet – Histoire de Paris. CC0 1.0. Unmodified museum reproduction.View the original Archive imageHermès on Gansevoort Street, Manhattan, photographed by Jim.henderson on 6 December 2019.Jim.henderson / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Unmodified.View the original Films open on their publisher's site. Nothing is played, embedded or tracked on this page.
All archives and films →
