Hermès Bags Under £10,000 · London

The question arrives in the same words every week: what is the least I can spend on a real Hermès bag? The honest answer is that the House has always made a working range beneath the Birkin and the Kelly — bags for riding, for the market, for the office — and on the secondary market most of it sits under £10,000. None of it is a lesser Hermès. The Picotin is saddle-stitched by the same hands as a Kelly; the Evelyne's leather comes from the same tannery as a Birkin's. What changes below the figure is the shape, the closure and the amount of hand-work in the construction, not the leather or the workshop.

The Picotin is where most people start, and for good reason. It is a feed bucket in Clémence or Taurillon leather — soft, slouchy, open at the top with a small lock strap across it — in three sizes, of which the 18 is the one clients want: big enough for a day, small enough to look deliberate. It has no lining, no hardware to speak of and no structure to lose, which is why a ten-year-old Picotin looks much like a new one. In Gold, Etoupe or black it is the bag a client buys first and keeps longest.

The Evelyne is the other door in. Designed in the late 1970s for grooms — the perforated H on the front was ventilation for damp brushes — it is a flat crossbody in Clémence with a canvas strap, in three sizes from the little TPM to the GM that takes a folder. It has no closure except a tab, and that is the point: it is the Hermès you carry when you are not thinking about your bag. The Mini Evelyne, the TPM, is the phone-and-cards version and lives well on a small frame. The Herbag, canvas with Vache Hunter leather trim and a Kelly-shaped flap, is the House's country cousin; the Garden Party in Negonda is the one that survives rain and the school run.

Then the bags that carry the Kelly closure without the Kelly's price or its quota. The Kelly Dépêches is the briefcase — the Kelly's turn-lock and straps on a flat, structured body in Togo, the one Kelly bought more often by men than by women, and one of the best-made objects the House sells. The Kelly To Go is the Kelly Classique wallet on a strap, the lightest way to own the closure. The Constance To Go does the same for the H clasp. All three are made in small numbers, none counts against a client's allocation, and all three appear here more often than in a boutique.

The minis are a category of their own under the figure. The Mini Lindy, the 20, is a doctor's bag scaled to a phone and a lipstick, with the Lindy's double handles and zips. The Mini Bolide is the descendant of the first handbag ever made with a zip, in 1923, shrunk to an evening size. The Mini Jypsière is the crossbody with the Kelly's closure on a soft body. The 24/24, a newer design in Evercolor and Swift, folds its handles down to become a shoulder bag. The So Kelly is the bucket with the Kelly's fittings. Each of these is a serious Hermès bag; each sits under £10,000 more often than not.

What the figure does not buy, in this market, is a classic Birkin, a Kelly 25 or 28, a Mini Kelly or a Constance. Those are the rationed bags, and the secondary market prices them for it. If your heart is set on one of them, the bracket below is not a consolation but a beginning: a Picotin or an Evelyne bought now is the bag most of our Birkin clients started with, and many still carry it on the days a Birkin is too much. We would rather say that plainly than sell you the wrong bag.

Everything here is inspected by hand before it is listed — leather, stitching, hardware, blind stamp, interior, strap — and photographed in daylight. Store-fresh pieces arrive unworn with the box and dustbag; pre-owned pieces are described exactly, corner by corner, with the year of the blind stamp recorded. Canvas pieces are checked for staining and edge wear; Clémence pieces for slouch and corner rub; Togo for handle darkening. Ask for any close-up and it is sent the same day.

Every bag in this gallery can be viewed by appointment in London, with the alternatives on the table beside it, or delivered insured, next day, anywhere in the UK; internationally we ship with full documentation. The list changes weekly as pieces sell and arrive, and a piece can leave the bracket when a rarer colour or leather pushes it above the line — so if a particular model, size or colour matters, tell us and we will look for it through the same network that fills the rest of the site.