Hermès is 174 years old and is widely regarded at the most luxurious super-luxe label. It has just announced a 50 percent jump in its first half profits to £257million due to huge demand for its famous Kelly and Birkin handbags.
However, Chief Executive Patrick Thomas warned investors that the company would not be able to maintain its level of performance for the rest of the year because it was running out of stock.
To cope with demand, the company has employed more than 400 extra staff members. It also plans to open 10 new stores.
The handbags, which range from around £10,000 up to about £150,000 are popular among the super-rich, royalty and celebrities; the Queen, Kate Moss and Victoria Beckham all wear the brand. Victoria Beckham is believed to have spend over £1.5million on more than 100 Hermès Birkin handbags.
The Kelly bag was named after Grace Kelly, while the bigger Birkin was the result of a chance meeting between Jane Birkin and former Hermès boss Jean-Louis Dumas on a Paris-London flight, when the actor complained that her Kelly bag was not big enough. They start at around $10,000, but can cost up to $150,000.
"We haven't yet seen a reduction in the number of people coming into our shops, not even in Japan [following the earthquake and tsunami disaster]", Thomas said. "The trend is still very good, but is lower than that of the first half. This is not at all due to a drop in the number of people in our stores. There are stores where we are a little tight on stocks. This isn't an alert. It's not serious. We are selling at the rate we are producing."
Hermès sales in the six months to the end of June jumped 22 percent to €1.31bn. The results echo similarly strong results from other high-end fashion brands including LVMH and Burberry.
Hermès shares have climbed 69 percent this year after billionaire Bernard Arnault's LVMH luxury group built up a 21 percent stake, despite opposition from the sprawling Hermès family, which controls some 62 percent of the group's shares. They closed down 1.2 percent to €262.
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