A practical guide for anyone ready to buy their first — or next — Hermès bag in London. It covers how the two icons differ in the hand, which sizes are selling, what “quota” really means, and where Londoners actually find them.
Ask ten women on Sloane Street which Hermès bag they would choose, and the answers split almost evenly. The Birkin and the Kelly share a maker, a saddle-stitch and a waiting list. Yet they are different objects with different lives. One is a tote that happens to be the most famous bag in the world. The other is a structured handbag that closes with a turn of the hand and asks you to slow down. Choosing between them is less about status and more about how you spend your day.
This guide sets out the practical differences and the sizes London buyers want right now. It also covers the three routes to owning one, including the route most people end up taking.
Birkin or Kelly: the difference in the hand
The Birkin is open-topped in spirit. It has two handles and a flap that most owners leave folded inside. Its wide, flat base swallows a laptop, a Twilly-wrapped water bottle and a child’s cardigan without complaint. Hermès designed it in 1984 for Jane Birkin, after she spilled the contents of her straw basket on a flight. It still behaves like a very expensive basket. You carry it on the arm or in the hand, never on the shoulder.
The Kelly is older and more formal. It dates from the 1930s, and Hermès renamed it in 1956 after Grace Kelly used one to shield her pregnancy from photographers. It has a single top handle and a detachable shoulder strap. The flap closes over the turn-lock and straps every time you put it down.
The Kelly comes in two constructions. Sellier has crisp, outward-stitched edges that hold a rigid silhouette. Retourné turns the stitching inside, which gives a softer, slouchier body. A Sellier Kelly in Epsom leather looks architectural. A Retourné in Togo looks like someone has already loved it.
The short version: if you want to throw things in and go, you want a Birkin. If you want a bag that looks finished the moment it closes, you want a Kelly. It sits as happily at dinner as at a desk.
The Birkin and Kelly sizes London is buying now
Sizes have shrunk. Ten years ago the Birkin 35 was the default. Today the Birkin 25 is the most requested size in the capital. The 30 comes a close second for anyone who carries a laptop. The 35 and 40 have become specialist pieces. They work as travel bags, or for taller clients who find a 25 looks like a clutch against them.
In the Kelly family, the Kelly 25 and Kelly 28 are the working sizes. The Mini Kelly II (20 cm) has gone from novelty to the hardest bag to source in London. It fits a phone, a card case and a lipstick. It is also the bag that most often arrives in JULL’s showroom with a client already waiting for it.
Colour-wise, the city is conservative. Black, Étoupe and Gold account for most enquiries. Craie and Rouge H remain the perennial second bag. Hardware splits roughly evenly between gold and palladium. Black bags with gold hardware still sell fastest.
The quota question, explained plainly
Hermès limits how many “quota bags” a client may buy from a boutique each year. These include Birkins, Kellys and Constances, and Hermès does not sell them to walk-in customers. In practice, a London boutique offers a Birkin or Kelly only to clients with a purchase history. Even then, you get the colour and size the boutique has on the day. You can buy one at retail. You cannot buy the one you want, when you want it.
That gap between what the boutique offers and what the client wants is the entire reason the secondary market exists. It also explains why a £10,000 boutique bag can resell for considerably more the week it leaves. Nobody involved is behaving unreasonably. The premium is the price of choosing.
Three ways to buy in London
The boutique. Build a relationship, buy the scarves and the shoes, and wait. This route rewards those who enjoy the ritual, and it is the only way to pay the retail price. Expect it to take time. Expect the boutique to offer you a bag rather than let you choose one.
The auction and consignment houses. Provenance is reliable, but you buy the piece as seen. The house adds its premium on top of the hammer price. You also compete with dealers who know exactly what they are bidding on.
A specialist dealer. Most London buyers who want a specific Birkin or Kelly end up here. A good specialist holds stock you can see and handle, and has already done the authentication. They have sold a hundred of them. So they can tell you whether a Kelly 25 Sellier in Epsom will suit the way you live.
London’s Hermès-only specialist
London has one dealer that deals in nothing but Hermès. JULL keeps around two hundred pieces in stock at any time. These include new, unworn and pre-owned Birkins, Kellys, Constances and exotics. JULL shows them by appointment at its showroom in Chelsea Harbour, seven days a week. The team inspects every bag by hand in its London workroom, verifies it with Entrupy, and photographs it on the day it arrives. Each listing sets out the blind stamp, leather and hardware plainly. That way, a client knows exactly which year and which skin they are looking at before they get in the car.
“People arrive thinking they want a Birkin because that is the name they know,” says Guilherme Ribeiro, JULL’s founder. “Then they pick up a Kelly 28 Retourné, feel the strap on the shoulder, and the decision makes itself. Our job is to have both in front of you, in the colour you had in mind and one you had not, and to be honest about which one you will actually carry.”
Unworn pieces come with their original box, dust bag and receipt where available. JULL grades pre-owned pieces on a five-point scale and describes wear rather than hiding it. Looking for a specific bag that is not yet in stock? You can brief the sourcing team, which draws on boutique networks across Europe. For the colours Hermès never quite makes enough of, this route often lands a bag below boutique retail.
Birkin or Kelly? Four honest questions
What do you carry? A laptop rules out anything under a Birkin 30 or a Kelly 28. If you carry just a phone and keys, the Mini Kelly and the Birkin 25 open up.
How do you carry it? Birkins live in the hand. Do you need your hands free for children, a dog or the Northern line? Then the Kelly’s strap earns its place.
Structured or soft? Choose Epsom and Sellier for crisp lines that never slouch. Togo, Clemence and Retourné give you a bag that relaxes with you.
First bag or fifth? For a first Hermès, choose a black or neutral Birkin 25 or Kelly 25 with gold hardware. It holds its appeal longest, which matters if you ever trade it for something braver.
Before you buy, anywhere
Insist on seeing the blind stamp and the hardware up close. Ask the seller to photograph the piece in daylight rather than under a lamp. Buy from someone who will put the authentication in writing. The current stock of Hermès Birkin bags in London is a sensible place to start, if only to calibrate your eye. Once you have handled a 25 and a 30 side by side, the question of Birkin or Kelly tends to answer itself.
