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These bags are so desirable that if you manage to purchase one from an Hermès boutique, you could easily walk out of the store and sell it to someone else for a great deal more than you paid for it at the retailer. Because they're so valuable outside of their own retail environment and move so quickly, the brand's sales associates (SAs) refuse to sell the bags to anyone other than "dedicated" Hermès brand fanatics and loyalists. A good measure that seems to sway most SAs into offering one of these coveted bags for sale is to spend at least the (retail) value of the bag on other items sold by Hermès--the housewares, the blankets, the clothes, the belts, the footwear, the silk scarves and the perfumes. Of course, none of this matters if you happen to be someone willing to buy them second-hand.
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Box leather is named after late-19th century English shoe craftsman Joseph Box. It was originally formulated for making black shoes that develop a gorgeous patina with wear, and was used almost exclusively on vintage Hermès bags, like the Kelly. Creases made in the material are very difficult to get out, so the fact that their craftsmen who construct the bags can saddle-stitch them together by hand without leaving any marks is exceptionally impressive. It's almost a tragedy that these are constructed to such a high standard only to inevitably see those marks of wear: the scratches that can't be buffed out, the creases that almost resemble veins. But maybe the fact that the only marks I see on the bag could have come from myself, and not where I got it from, is a part of the beauty.
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