Hermes Korea buck luxury downturn

Hermes, the French high fashion brand, has proven to be an exception to the downturn in South Korea’s luxury market, industry officials said last Tuesday.

Compared to other luxury brands that had one to three per cent sales increases over the past three or four years, Hermes Korea has shown growth of 20 to 30 per cent, according to global consulting firm Bain & Company. The company’s sales rose 25.7 per cent in 2012, 31.1 per cent in 2013, 32.7 per cent in 2014, and then 27.9 per cent in 2015.

Department store officials say much of Hermes’ popularity comes from its handbags – in particular, its Birkin bag. Retail sources report 1000 people in South Korea are currently on the waiting list for one of the bags, but three to four years ago, unable to meet the impossibly high demand, the stores stopped taking reservations.

“We are hard-pressed to be able to deliver on reservations made years ago,” an official at a Hermes store in Seoul said. “So we stopped taking reservations altogether.”

A Birkin bag is locally priced at 13 million won (US$10,975), with crocodile-skin models selling for as much as 70 million won.