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A distant descendant of luxury handbag empire Hermes has passed on his stake in the design house to his Gen Z children, making them billionaires.
According to regulatory filings seen by Bloomberg, Wilfried Guerlain, a relative of the company’s founder Thierry Hermès, gifted shares worth $4.2 million (£3.2 million) to his four children: Sixteen, 25, Stanislas, 20, Matthias, 19, and Albarn, 18.
Guerlain, who has worked for Hermes since 1995 and is now the brand’s vice president of IT and data, gifted 450 shares to each of his four children this year, with each share being worth 2,164 euros (1,822 pounds) as of the close of trading on Tuesday (3 September).
According to social media, one of Guerlain’s children is pursuing a career in luxury fashion management in Paris and has completed internships at brands such as Cartier and Chanel, while another young heir is doing an internship at Hermes alongside family members.
The Hermes family is the richest in Europe: Thierry Hermes has more than 100 direct heirs, worth around $170 billion (£129 billion), according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
At a time when demand for luxury fashion is sluggish, Hermes has fared relatively well, with the brand’s shares rising 10 percent and the company now valued at nearly £218 billion.
Hermes is known for its luxury. Immensely popular in the fashion world, the Birkin bag is one of Hermes’ most famous designs. The Birkin was first introduced in the mid-1980s and was named after the British actress and singer Jane Birkin.
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Birkin bags sell for between £9,000 and £150,000, and can even go up in value on the second-hand market.
In 2022, a rare Himalayan crocodile leather Birkin sold at auction for a record price of $630,000 (£478,000).
In March this year, it was reported that the brand was facing a lawsuit in California for illegally only allowing customers with “sufficient purchasing history” to buy a Birkin bag.
The two California residents alleged that the French luxury brand violated antitrust laws by “tying” the sale of one product to the purchase of another.
“Typically, only consumers who are deemed worthy of purchasing a Birkin handbag are allowed to view the Birkin handbag (in a private room),” the lawsuit alleges.
Hermes did not respond to a request for comment.
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Sarah Jessica Parker, who is known for playing fashion columnist Carrie Bradshaw in “Sex and the City,” previously admitted that she carried a fake Birkin bag on the show.
Parker said the show’s costume designer, Patricia Field, knew Hermes and offered to source an authentic Birkin, but Hermes told her not to worry.
The bag was meant to hide Packer’s pregnant belly, but it didn’t serve that purpose when it came to being photographed.
“I was pregnant and we did the best we could,” Parker told Vogue. “Look at how big that bag was. It had one thing to do and it just didn’t do it.”
“If it had been a real Hermes bag, it might have turned out better.”
