The HERMES sale. It has taken me this long to recover from it.....

So, every sale season, Hermes has a special sale that is held in the Palais de Congres. Thus, their stores never have the sale items and the immaculate organization there never gets disrupted. I have been to this sale twice. As we all know, Hermes makes practically the mos expensive 'IT' bag ever...the Birkin. The Kelly and the Birken are the Holy Grails of purses. But to obtain one, there is usually a long wait list (meaning years!) and it will cost you a very pretty penny. Each bag is handmade by one person and one bag normally takes several days to finish. They are amazing. So, one can imagine that this type of attention to detail translates to their other items. We can never forget the 'carre'- their beautiful scarves which are so artistic and colorful, we could collect them forever. As you can imagine, I have started my own collection!

The price points are very high, even on sale. Beach towels will set you back 200 euros, carres were 145 euros ( 100 euros cheaper than in the stores!) and the clothing starts at around 500 euros. Hermes is definitely the BCBG brand (french word for preppy or our version of WASP) so you can imagine what the crowd was like!

The Palais de Congres is basically a big convention center. You wait in line for at least an hour with women laquered with furs and jewels. This was easily the most aggressive crowd I have encountered in all the sales I attended this past season. Once inside, you are required to show if you have anything from Hermes, check your coat and are given a clear bag. I first hit the scarf table and women were pushing each other, grabbing scarves and hogging the mirrors. It was intense. They of course did not have any of the classic bags for sale, only the boring ones that they make for the people who want Hermes, regardless if they are totally unattractive. The sale was also littered with Japonista fashionistas, so those bags definitely sold! There was even a duty-free counter at this sale.
I bought a scarf, but the atmosphere was so thick with passive and sometimes very aggressive energy that I would recommend going when you are really ready to fight a bit.