Begging For A Birkin: How #RichTok Is Demystifying the Hermès Game
- Payton Turkeltaub
- Jun 24
- 6 min read
“I wasted two whole days on our vacation pursuing this bag that I probably never was gonna get in the first place.”
“The Hermès game is literally so embarrassing,” says influencer Hannah Chody in a TikTok video during a trip to Paris. “I just walked into a boutique for, like, the sixth time in three days asking them to take my money. I am literally begging them, at this point.”
Six months later, now with an etoupe Birkin 25 in hand, Chody sat down to divulge all the details of how she finally scored her dream bag in Milan to her 200K followers. “That's the tea,” she says with a smile. “What should I put on my wishlist next, guys?”
Chody isn’t the only creator pulling back the curtain on shopping at Hermès, the French luxury brand well-known for making its customers jump through hoops to spend tens of thousands of dollars. In another video with over 7 million views, influencer Audrey Peters documents what it’s like to be offered a Hermès Kelly, recording inside a private room while the bag, a vert criquet Kelly 25, is unboxed by a gloved sales associate. “Wait so you just can’t walk into a store and buy something?” writes one commenter. “Sorry I’m poor haha.”
40 years since the Birkin’s debut and close to 100 since the Kelly’s, these purses have evolved from mere handbags into the ultimate status signifiers, signaling that the person wearing them has achieved the ultimate prize (and seemingly spent a large amount of money and time at Hermès in pursuit of it). They’ve stopped by boutiques to chat with their sales associate, bought copious amounts of Oran sandals and enamel bangles and even a piece of Ready-to-Wear or two, all of which finally amounted to the offer. Because you can’t just walk into a boutique and buy a Birkin or a Kelly – they have to be offered to you.
While this exclusivity has always been a mainstay of the bag's appeal, TikTok has now transformed the once elusive purchasing process into a famed game — one that everyone wants to know how to win. Because, as Syracuse University Assistant Professor Faren Karimkhan says, “Hermès specifically used to be if-you-know-you-know type products. But now they are everywhere, and everybody knows about them, whether you can afford one or not.”
As the story goes, the original Hermès Birkin was created for – and named after – British actress and model Jane Birkin in 1984 after telling then-Hermès director Jean-Louis Dumas that she couldn’t find a bag big enough for daily use. But it wasn’t until the late ‘90s that the bag evolved into the prestige marker we know it as today (The often-referenced Sex and the City Birkin episode, “Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda,” aired in 2001).
On the other hand, the Kelly was first introduced as the Sac à Dépêches in the 1930s by Robert Dumas. Infamous for maintaining control over everything from their manufacturing to their design to their distribution model, Hermès notoriously restricts how many Birkins and Kellys (otherwise known as quota bags) are produced each year in order to maintain their value. “There is, in fact, a limited supply of product,” explains Professor Thomaï Serdari. Because of this, the clients who are the most devoted to — and have spent the most money with — the brand are often the ones prioritized for bag offers.
Subsequently, brand devotees and casual shoppers alike have taken to the Internet to learn – and document – how to play what has become known as the Hermès game, or the rules to follow to achieve the elusive bag offer. This includes maintaining a 1:1 spend ratio on “Birkin bait” and only shopping with one specific sales associate at one specific store (preferably, a less competitive one; Dublin is apparently a good option, if you want to hop overseas). Even within the hierarchy there are hierarchies; purchasing Ready-to-Wear gets you to the top of the list quicker than home goods would, allegedly.
Now, all of this information and more can be found in seconds with a TikTok search or a quick scroll through Reddit. “In a pre-social media time period, you would just show up at the store and someone would explain to you, ‘No, sorry, this [Birkin] is here only for show, we have a long list,” says Serdari. “It was very well known in the industry that it was the same challenge for someone to get their hands on that particular type of bag, but it wasn't [known on] social media.”
Now, creators are the ones doing the explaining, bringing along their followers for every meticulously documented trip, disappointing offer, post-leather appointment storytime, and highly anticipated unboxing. Self-proclaimed “Birkin woman” Tania Antonenkova (who believes the game is “one thousand percent real”) has even built a following from teaching Hermès strategy to those willing to purchase her $49 guidebooks, which promise to help people spend less money and time on scoring a bag. “When I was starting to shop [Hermès], nobody was really talking online about how to buy bags,” says Antonenkova. “I mean, there were hints and jokes, but there was no ‘You need to do X, Y, and Z'.” For prospective bag owners not wanting to shell out for advice, there is a near-endless supply of free options online to build up your Hermès knowledge; just search the brand on any social platform.
Hermès content often performs extremely well, even amongst scrollers not in the market for a Birkin. Vogue fashion writer Christian Allaire even penned an entire piece about his love of watching strangers buy the bags for the site. Of course, there is the simple joy that comes from someone else spending their money (“Now, can I afford a luxurious Hermès Birkin? [...] Absolutely not,” writes Allaire), coupled with the visual appeal and known exclusivity of the product. Personally, TikTok is the closest I’m getting to a quota bag anytime soon, which is why I’m often intrigued when I see the iconic orange box.
And as fun as these videos are to watch, Karimkhan explains that this exposure often increases viewers' desire to create that lifestyle for themselves, “...which often happens through consumption.” As one user on r/TheHermesGame writes, “For me, [social media] certainly made Hermès seem a bit more within reach. Prior to all the content creators posting about it, I had the impression Hermès bags were really truly unattainable and only within reach for the ultra wealthy.” Another user writes, “Social media has also made shopping at Hermes a little miserable, in my opinion. Every store is ‘competitive’ because of ‘unprecedented demand.’ It did not used to be like this.”
While there is some truth to these rules, Serdari doesn’t believe Hermès has any true gaming intentions. Rather, people’s obsession with mastering them – and their accessibility – has shifted the online idea of who the brand’s clientele truly is. Because while anyone can learn the rules to play the game, only Hermès has the final say, meaning you could spend thousands for nothing. “There is some truth to all of this,” explains Serdari, “But it's not a rule… there is no law that says you have to spend $10,000 here with this associate.” She also points out that these sought-after quota bags are not even the brand’s most expensive item; on the Hermès website, one could take their pick from a $13,500 coat, a $13,200 suitcase, a $25,100 watch, and $40,100 earrings. “Imagine someone who is buying a watch for himself and a watch for his wife and the jackets every winter,” says Serdari. “These are easily hundreds of thousands of dollars. How, then, can the young woman [complain] on TikTok that she's buying this and this and the other and she's still not on the list?” But those clients are not the ones posting their luxury hauls on TikTok or teaching others how they got a Birkin, because they are not playing any game — they are simply shopping.
That’s exactly why Lucy Jones, the Head of Operations at an influencer marketing company in Los Angeles, removed herself from the Hermès game. After being bitten by the luxury bug and learning about the Hermès rules on Reddit threads, blogs, and TikTok, she began purchasing sandals, homeware, and scarves in pursuit of her dream bag: a mini Kelly. “It was almost like a personal accomplishment for me to be able to have one of those bags and not just buy it off the retail market, but to be offered one from a sales associate,” says Jones. And while she was following all the supposed rules, rude treatment in stores and a “painfully unsuccessful” last-ditch effort in France this past summer made her decide the game wasn’t worth playing anymore.
“I truly spent probably two full days just trying to play the Hermès game in Paris, and afterwards on the plane home, I was like, I need to look inward,” says Jones. “I wasted two whole days on our vacation pursuing this bag that I probably never was gonna get in the first place.” 🌀
Payton Turkeltaub is a freelance writer and current graduate student at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. Previously, she has written for Screenshot Media, V Magazine, and Bedford + Bowery.
