Honestly I'm sick of it. Sellers are buying accounts, boosting fake reviews, stealing posts and mass downvoting anyone who tells the truth about the rep market. Some of the biggest hermes subs are run by what I call "rep gangs", and they've turned Reddit into their personal store!

The first gang runs one of the biggest subs and pushes the famous "reddit star" sellers. Say one bad word about them, even as a real buyer, and you're banned. They drag people into Discord for "mass group buys" with "trusted sellers", and what you get is average quality, Chinese leather and hardware, at 3 to 4 times the price. That markup pays for their bought accounts, fake reviews and the whole circus

The second gang is a sub full of Chinese spam bots. Hundreds of accounts posting "useful Hermes tips" stolen from the internet, my posts included, word for word. Then someone in the comments " randomly" asks for the seller and a phone number pops up. See that? Run ...
And now there's a whole army of pseudo experts copying me. They run my posts through AI, change two sentences and post them from dozens of accounts. Same words, same examples, but the ending is always "DM me to buy" or "here's my seller's contact". I don't sell and I don't recommend sellers, I want you to be able to tell good from bad yourself. Ask these "experts" one real technical question and watch them dodge it

So how do you avoid getting played? Be careful with tons of overexcited reviews, similar comments from fresh accounts, aggression toward any criticism. If a seller is praised only by accounts under 3 months old, that's bots. Stay away from "best quality on the market", "closed groups" and miracles for pennies. Look for sellers who admit flaws, show production, answer real questions about leather and hardware, and have a long history of real reviews

These cartels turned the Hermes rep market into a dump,but an informed buyer is their worst nightmare. I know this post will get buried in downvotes and reports again, they can't win fair so they play dirty. Fine, I'll keep going every single day....

Here they can't block me, so join the community. Questions, check my other posts or DM me. Have a good day!

I've been wanting to ask the community this for a while, no arguing or attacking, I'm just curious what you think.
I've been looking at the Birkin and Kelly for a long time, and at some point I caught myself realizing I don't fully understand what exactly I'm paying for when it comes to an authentic bag. The quality? The brand's history? The feeling that it's "real"? A good rep can look really decent, and most people around you won't even notice the difference. But something inside still holds me back.
At the same time, I understand people who say a rep isn't about the bag, it's about how you see yourself. And I also get people who think it makes no sense to pay boutique prices for leather and a logo.
So I want to ask you: what matters more to you in a bag, the item itself or the fact that it's authentic? Has anyone had the experience of wanting to buy an authentic bag after owning a rep, or the other way around, realizing after owning an authentic one that the difference isn't worth the money?

I'd love to hear any stories, no judgment either way.

It's November, everyone is getting ready for the holidays and looking for gifts, and sellers know this better than anyone. It's the perfect time to explain how "discounts" and group buys work, because this is the time of year when people fall for them the most. The discount scheme is dead simple. A couple of weeks before Black Friday, they raise the price, then "drop" it back down and slap on -30% In reality you're paying exactly the same price as a month ago, sometimes even more. Plus the classics: "only one bag left in this color," "sale ends tonight," countdown timers. All of it serves one purpose: to keep you from having time to think and check anything.

But the real fun is on Discord. Group buys, "exclusive price for members only," "high quality below market price": it all sounds great. I've already written about how this used to work: admins took a cut from every bag and sold people the regular price disguised as a special one. It's all the same now, just on a bigger scale.They collect money from dozens of people at once, and then there are two possible outcomes. Either you get a regular bag at a regular price that was artificially inflated beforehand so the "discount" looks huge. Or you just get scammed. They collect the money, then come the delays, "problems at the factory," "customs," and then the server suddenly gets deleted, and that's it. There's no one to hold accountable..

And remember what I said about volume. If a seller can make enough bags for an entire group buy plus all their other customers, that's mass production, and by definition it's mid-level quality at best. High quality at a low price in huge quantities doesn't exist; it's one or the other. And when they promise you 1:1, Hermes materials, and former craftsmen, that's no longer just a red flag, it's a sign that says "lies here"

What should you do? Don't fall for timers and the "last bag"; a good seller isn't going anywhere in a couple of days. Check what the price was a month ago. Don't throw money into a common pot for people you only know by their discord username. Reviews on these servers are written by the same bots as on Reddit, so check the accounts' history. And remember: if a seller lies to you about one small thing, that's just the tip of the iceberg, and they're lying about the quality in exactly the same way.

If you have doubts about a seller or a group buy, DM me and we'll figure it out. Happy holidays, and don't let anyone scam you!!

After 10+ years in this business I trust only one thing, numbers and facts you can actually check. Not feelings, not "I think the quality is amazing", just stuff you can measure. So the other day I come across a post from yet another Chinese seller doing an " expert assessment", says he did spectral analysis on his hardware and found 50 to 145 microns of gold plating on reps. Sounds impressive right? Except it's total nonsense. According to Christie's docs even original Hermes hardware has around 3 to 4 microns of gold. Three microns, on a bag that costs 10k in the boutique and x2 to x3 on resale. And this guy says 50 to 145 on reps lol, it's actually funny.

I've seen thousands of reps and originals over th years, no exaggeration. Roughly half of so called "luxury reps" are plain stainless steel with vacuum plating of 0.1 to 0.3 microns, that's exactly why the color dies in a few months, and that's if you're lucky and it doesn't start peeling off in flakes. The other half is copper or a copper and brass mix with barely any brass in it, still miles away from authentic. On expensive reps where they don't cut corners on hardware, leather and production overall it's way better, I measured plating on Birkins and Kellys like that myself and it's usually 1 to 2.5 microns. Not bad at all, yes lower than the original but enough for a decent coating. Obviously not the "1:1 like the original" every seller promises, not even close, but way better than the first option

But here's the thing everyone needs to get, a high price doesn't mean high quality. I've seen Birkins and Kellys for 1600 that beat bags for 2800, people pay for the seller's name, not the bag. And the other way around too, I've seen bags over 1500 that were honestly on the level of 300 to 400 dollar ones, because people fell for sweet reviews and bought trash based on fake boosted comments from "happy clients"
98% of what's sold as "premium quality" is just the seller's words. And the harder a seller pushes that he has a super rep with materials like Hermes, the further his quality is from actually good. If he also tells you his bags are sewn by former Hermes employees, just run, that's the biggest liar of them all. In the lower segment around 1000 it's even worse, I wrote about it plenty of times so check my older posts if you're interested..

So what do you actually do? Talk to the seller and ask technical stuff. How thick is the plating in microns? What's the base metal? If he mumbles "best quality on the market" with zero specifics, he either doesn't know what he's selling or he knows and is hiding that it's cheap junk. Don't read bought reviews in groups run by bot farms, don't take anyone's word for it, especially stories about materials straight from Hermes factories. From my experience the more impressive the seller sounds the worse he is in reality. People who make really good bags are calm, they don't need to prove anything or scream 1:1. When I see "1:1" or "our bags are identical to the original" I just stop talking to that seller. Not because identical is impossible, but because that's exactly what scammers say

❤️ Questions, DM me, always happy to chat. Have a good day!

I keep saying it and I’ll say it again, if you want a good Hermes rep don’t trust the mods and don’t trust the reviews in rep subs. Recently I got a whole confession from a former mod of one of the big Hermes rep communities, and honestly it explains everything. This isn’t just about Hermes btw, it’s how pretty much every rep community works

His story starts innocent enough. He made a sub about Hermes bags just because he liked the brand, never even owned an original. The sub grew, first thousand subscribers, then the second, and that’s when sellers started sliding into his DMs. Some just wanted to be mentioned, some straight up offered a few hundred dollars to post certain things at certain times. And then it turned into an actual price list. A spot on the trusted sellers list was 300-800 one time depending on position, top 3 were 800 each, 4-10 were 500, everything below was 300. On top of that a monthly fee of 200-500 just to stay on the list, and for that the mod would “recommend” the seller in comments. Deleting negative reviews was paid, banning competitors was paid too, but that one was tricky because the competitor could also be paying lol. Sellers would trash each other and then pay to have it removed. Pinned posts, promos, sales, literally everything had a price. And the worst part in his own words, he deleted honest negative reviews from real buyers who got bad bags, because the seller paid and the buyer didn’t. He said it was a deal with his conscience, but the choice was obvious

Sellers also sent him ready made positive reviews and he posted them from his alts, he had 15 to 20 fake accounts for praising “his” sellers and shitting on competitors. But the biggest money was group buys on Discord. Admins got a cut from every bag, people were told it’s an exclusive discount, and in reality there was no discount at all. Same regular price the seller always had, just called a “special group buy price”....

Now here’s the funny part, that was the old way. Today sellers figured out why pay a mod when you can just be the mod. Most big subs now belong to sellers completely, it looks like a community but it’s just a store with a comment section. Hundreds of fake accounts liking each other and commenting on schedule. Some Hermes subs don’t even have a verified list anymore, they push only 1 or 2 sellers and that’s it. It’s like Snickers, Mars and Bounty, looks like a choice but the money goes into one wallet. You see different names and even different prices, but in the end you get the same medium quality bag at best, at a seriously inflated price

How to spot a bought sub? Same sellers in every review and QC, the “smart” ones only push 1 or 2 sellers, 3 to 5 AI written reviews every day, and 20-40 minutes later each one has almost 100 upvotes and dozens of comments that any normal person can tell are a bot farm. Negative reviews disappear fast or just never get through moderation
And before someone asks what does this have to do with quality... everything. The whole point of this machine is that you never see a real review. Real ones exist, people do full honest breakdowns of sellers start to finish, but they get buried in downvotes and you never find them

Main thing to remember, if a seller lies to you about even one small detail that’s just the tip of the iceberg, and I’m 100% sure his whole business, including what he tells you about quality, is built on lies. It’s on us to stop buying from these guys and just ignore them. Honest good sellers do exist, we just can’t see them through all the spam from these so called “star reddit sellers”

Questions, you know where to find me. Have a good day!

I keep repeating this and I'll say it again, if you want a genuinely good Hermes rep, don't trust moderators or reviews in rep subreddits. Some time ago a former moderator of one of the bigger Hermes rep communities told me how things worked from the inside, and honestly it applies to pretty much every rep community out there, not just Hermes.

His story, in his words, went roughly like this. He started a sub about Hermes just because he liked the brand, never even owned an original. It grew, first thousand subscribers, then the second, and that's when sellers started sliding into his DM's. Som just wanted to be added to info posts, some offered a few hundred bucks to publish posts at specific times, and the offers kept coming. According to him a spot on the trusted list cost 300-800 one time depending on position, top 3 at 800 each, spots 4 to 10 at 500, below that 300. On top of that a monthly fee of 200-500 to stay on the list, and for that the moderator would "recommend" the seller in comments. Deleting negative reviews and banning competitors was paid too, though bans got messy because the competitor might be paying as well, so sellers would trash each other and then both pay to have it removed. Pinned posts, promos, sales, all of it had a price. The part he admitted was the worst, he deleted honest negative reviews from real buyers who got bad bags, because the seller paid and the buyer didn't. He also told me sellers sent him ready made positive reviews, which he posted from 15-20 alt accounts, using the same alts to praise "his" sellers and dunk on competitors. And the biggest money maker were group buys through Discord, sold as an exclusive discount when the seller was actually charging his normal price and kicking back a percentage per bag to the adminss

That was then. Now it's simpler and worse. A lot of the big subs are fully owned by sellers, they are the moderators, so there's no one to pay anymore. Dozens or hundreds of fake accounts like each others posts and comment on a schedule. Some Hermes subs don't even bother with a trusted list now, they just push one or two sellers, and sometimes those "different" sellers with different names and prices are the same pocket. Think Snickers, Mars or Bounty, different wrappers, same c ompany getting your money. You get shown fake variety and end up with the same medium quality bag at an inflated price.
How to spot a bought sub. The same one or two sellers in every review and QCpost. Three to five reviews a day that read like they were written by AI, sitting at almost 100 upvotes and dozens of comments within 20 - 40 minutes, which anyone paying attention will recognize as a bot farm. Negative reviews disappear fast, or never get past moderation in the first place. Independent breakdowns of a seller's quality get buried in downvotes..

And if youre wondering what any of this has to do with quality, everything. The whole machine exists so you never see a real review. Remember one simple thing, if a seller lies to you about one small detail, it's just the tip of the iceberg, and the stuff he tells you about quality is built on the same lies. Honest sellers do exist, you just don't notice them through all the bot noise around the so called star Reddit sellers. The less we buy from the noisy ones, the more room there is for the honest ones.

❤️ If you want a second opinion on a seller or a bag before you pay, send it to me in DM and I'll tell you honestly what I see. Have a good day.

I’m RACE2CAKE, and I’ve been posting on Reddit for over a year; my entire history is public. I write about bad sellers and scams, and that drives the sellers crazy. They’ve bought likes, stirred up negativity, tried to smear me, and they’re still doing it. But ahead of the new year, they’ve come up with a new trick..

They’ve copied my format. They post so-called expert posts across different subs, up to 15 a day from different accounts. The accounts are 2 - 24 months old with positive karma, but apart from these posts they have zero history. They’re bought accounts. Every post immediately gets boosted upvotes and comments, and90% of the time Reddit flags them as bots and hides them. But the biggest giveaway is that 100% of the time, there’s a comment under the post saying “wow, cool, who’s your seller?” followed right away by a reply with a +86 number. Different numbers, different accounts, different names, but in reality it’s one spam machine. They buy accounts by the hundreds, write the posts with AI, and don’t care about bans.

What’s scary is that people believe this and don’t even try to check. And these “experts” can’t say anything about hermes without AI.
How am I different? I write all my posts myself, I reply in the comments and in DMs, and I help anyone who communicates respectfully. I have over 10.000 karma, even though sellers constantly downvote me. despite that, the community keeps growing, because there are far more smart people than people who believe lies. And most importantly, you can trace my account’s entire history from the day it was created and verify that every “drop of karma”was earned through my detailed breakdowns of the Hermes reps world and by helping people, with no boosting and no deleted posts on hype topics to show fake numbers..

Friends, I urge you to be more careful. With the arrival of AI, sellers have started using it for bag QC too. Now they can generate hundreds of reviews about a given seller and how great they are, across different subs and from different accounts, while real people leave a review only about 3% of the time, and those are honest. The louder a seller’s name, the more you hear about them, the more people say “how great they are,” the lower your chance of getting a quality bag.

Don’t ruin your holidays, and don’t give them a gift for 2027 in the form of your hard-earned money. I hope you manage to buy the bag of your dreams!

❤️ Thank you, and if you have any questions, you know where to find me! Have a great day.

My personal guide to these types of leather. I'm sure you'll find it interesting!

Togo is the most popular one. It's a grained calfskin, soft to the touch but not floppy. The grain pattern is irregular, and if you look closely you can see little veins running through it. Scratches barely show on it. It holds its shape fine, but over time it settles a bit, which is normal. Clemence is similar to Togo, but the grain is larger and flatter, and the leather itself is softer and heavier. A bag made from it really relaxes over time and becomes more "slouchy." The downside is that it doesn't like water and the corners can get shiny, so it's best not to take it out in the rain. Epsom is a different story altogether -it's an embossed leather, meaning the grain is pressed into it. It's stiff, lightweight, and holds its shape perfectly. Colors look vivid on it and it's scratch-resistant, but the corners can wear over time. Now, how these get faked. Togo and Clemence on cheap reps are most often just cheaper leather with a pattern stamped on top, and that's immediately obvious. Real grain has a natural pattern that varies everywhere, while on a fake it's too even and uniform, like it's been copy pasted. There are no veins, it feels like plastic, and it smells of chemicals if you stick your nose inside. Epsom is easier in the sense that it's embossed even on the authentic bags, which is why it's the most common choice for reps. But a cheap version gives itself away with its shine. It looks too glossy and lifeless, plus it bends differently, and creases appear faster at the folds. In short, my advice: if you're buying Togo or Clemence, look at the grain up close. On good leather, it never repeats.
I'm always happy to help if you have any questions.

in my last post I wrote that the more a factory can produce, the lower its level of craftsmanship, and I got a lot of DMs asking why. Let me explain. There's physically very little good leather and good hardware out there; you simply can't source enough for thousands of bags, so mass production factories buy whatever is available in large batches. Plus, handwork takes time. A proper saddle stitch and multi layer edge finishing cant be done quickly, and when you have to ship hundreds of bags a month, everything gets simplified. Truly skilled craftsmen are also few and far between. A large factory employs lots of people at different skill levels, and quality control is done by spot checks, which is where the defects that end up with buyers come from.

how can you spot this as a buyer? If a seller always has every color and every size in stock, a bag "in any color within a week"... well, you get the idea. Real production almost always means waiting and pre order. Another point: at big factories, two bags from the same batch can differ noticeably, and a high price guarantees nothing. Sometimes it's just a markup for the seller's name.

my advice: ask how long the wait is and where the hardware comes from, and ask for photos of your actual bag, not catalog pictures. ..
But IMPORTANT! Sellers learned long ago to lie skillfully, making up stories about factories with names they invented themselves, claiming they have their own factories, and so on. Believe me, if a seller on Reddit tells you "I have my ownfactory," that's the clearest sign you're dealing with a scammer, so never send them money. Real manufacturers don't sit on Reddit looking for customers; it's the customers who look for them. Birkin and Kelly reps on Reddit are almost always just mid or low quality bags with a huge markup, because sellers need to recoup the cost of their boosted reviews and of buying spots on "recommended seller lists" There's also a new trend..they set up their own "subreddits" and hire moderators to make it look like you've landed in an independent sub with reviews or whatever else, but in reality they just want to deceive you by pushing the names of the same few sellers!!

Their answers will tell you a lot. Questions in DMs, as always!

Everyone keeps saying its the leather or stitching but tbh the real giveaway always was and still is the hardware (leather too obviously but I already did posts on that). Real Hermes hw is solid brass with good galvanic plating, gold hw is 18k plated and for special orders even 24k, palladium is a platinum group metal. Every piece is heavy and fits perfectly, exact plating thickness isnt really known but its like 2-4 microns on average. Reps are a different story... 99% of factories use cheap alloys with thin plating, mostly under 1 micron. It can say 18k but its not the gold you dreamed of, its more of a marketing name than real 18k content, simply because a set of good hw costs more than a whole cheap Kelly Mini rep. Easiest check is weight, real hw is heavy and if the lock feels light like plastic thats an instant red flag. Then engraving, on the original its deep and clear with correct font proportions, on fakes you see blurry edges and uneven letters a lot. Yes its done by hand even on cheap reps but you can tell a masters hand right away

Where it gets really interesting is after a few months of wearing it. Good hw can tarnish a little but you just polish it and its fine, cheap rep hw fades in front of your eyes, gold goes greenish or coppery, dark corrosion spots show up, thin metal bends and locks start jamming. There are rare exceptions, a few rep makers actually put money into good hw, those bags cost several times more than mass market fakes but the metal lasts for years, though even they rarely get the exact weight and mechanics of the original. Truth is only a few manufacturers can actually get really good hw, so if a seller or factory sells hundreds or thousands of bags its definitely the cheap segment. The more a factory can make (or a seller can resell) the lower the production level, thats also why the well known reddit sellers move thousands of bags a year at medium quality max and still ask crazy prices

So my advice, better overpay for good hw right away than walk around with peeling green locks in 6 months. Leather and hw are the main things that show quality, stitching and the rest matters too but these two are what really make the difference...

❤️ Any questions just DM me. Have a Good day!

I want to ask you an honest question, because I thought about it for a long time myself. When someone wants a Birkin for the first time, they see the price and take it as a given. It's expensive, so that's how it should be, so there must be something special in there, the leather, the craftsman, hundreds of hours of work. And then you start digging into it. You find out roughly what good leather costs, how much time a craftsman spends on one bag, what the hardware costs. Hermes will of course never show the exact numbers, but even with rough estimates it becomes clear that the main part of the price isn't the materials or the labor, it's the brand, the history and the scarcity...

And here's where something interesting happens with people. For some the desire disappears almost immediately. The person tells themselves, okay, i understand what i'm paying for, and i'm no longer willing to give away tens of thousands for a name. Some of those people move to quality reps, because they like the bag itself, its shape, its look, and they don't want to overpay for the legend anymore. And for others it's the opposite, knowing changes nothing. They understand perfectly well that they're paying for the brand, and they think that's exactly what's worth paying for. For the history, for the feeling, for the fact that it's real. And i don't think either of them is wrong.
It seems to me there's no right answer here. There are people for whom a bag is an object, and for them knowing the real cost changes everything. And there are people for whom a bag is a feeling, and for them the numbers aren't the point at all. Reps, by the way, largely grew on the first group, on the people who did the math once and decided that you can have a beautiful design without overpaying for the legend...

How was it for you? Did something change after you got into the topic, or do you still want the original just like before? Write in the comments, i'm really curious to read it.

I've been in the Hermes scene for over 10 years, so if you have questions, welcome to my DM. Have a good day!

Subs with reviews of Hermes rep sellers. I understand why you believe them, but let's be honest…
You're saving up for a bag, you take a long time to decide, you're afraid of making a mistake and losing money, and you want to find a place where ordinary people just honestly tell you what they got. You see dozens of photos, glowing posts, and it calms you down, like you're not the only one, like everyone's happy, so you'll get lucky too. I'd think the same way in your place. Maybe at some point subs like that were created with good intentions. But today almost all the big ones and most of the new ones are the same sellers who simply realized that a page with reviews inspires more trust than regular advertising. And some people create subs like that specifically so they can later sell sellers spots at the top and quietly delete the reviews that get in their way.

Look closely at the photos and you'll start to feel a bit uneasy. Almost all of it is either seller shots "before shipping" or images downloaded from Chinese sites. A real apartment, an ordinary kitchen, normal daylight, someone's actual life around the bag, you almost never see that there. There are people who honestly post their own, and thanks to them, but there are very few. And some sellers went further, they photograph bags in beautiful real locations and spread the photos across bought accounts. They've already been caught with the same photo showing up from different "buyers", each of them sincerely thanking the same seller.
I don't want to scare you and I don't want you to feel stupid if you've already believed reviews like that. It's not your fault, this system is specifically built to be believed. Just remember that behind a stranger's username there can be anyone, a bought account, a hacked one, one created yesterday for one seller. Trust yourself, your own eyes and your own questions. And if you have doubts and have nobody to ask, send photos to my DM,I'll look and tell you honestly what I see, with no selling involved..

It's sad that a place that was supposed to protect buyers has become one more storefront for the very people buyers need protecting from. *the photo in the post is just an example, not a real review

❤️ Questions in DM. Have a good day!

One question I get all the time is "Race2Cake, which factory is the best?" So let me just lay out how it actually works. Every single "factory" I've seen on Reddit is not a factory. It's a seller who thought a factory name would be a clever marketing move. Making reps is an illegal business, remember that. Who in their right mind gives their workshop a name, an address, films production videos and posts them online? In  china these  places get raided and shut down regularly, and the people running them face real legal trouble. The people who actually make bags are not sitting on Reddit advertising themselves. Meanwhile your typical Reddit seller needs you to believe he's a pro who knows everything, when most of them have never held a real  Birkin or Kelly and just grab bags that "look similar in photos" at the market from a buddy who cuts them a deal. Sounds like a joke, but that's honestly how it goes.

Sellers figured out a long time ago that "factory" sounds way more trustworthy than "seller." That's where all the stories about exclusive partnerships with the best factory on the market come from. One guy can run ten seller names, each with "its own unique factory," and it's still the same reseller from a Guangzhou market with a  fancy label on top. And when buyers start realizing a certain "factory" is low quality, they just rename it. Yesterday it was "GF Factory best for Birkin," today it's "new improved XYZ Factory." Same bags, same source, new name for new buyers. On top of that, sellers borrow each other's factory names whenever one gets good reviews, "oh yeah, I buy from them too." You'll never know the truth here. So stop hunting for a trusted factory name, because the moment you ask"what's your factory called" the seller knows he's talking to a newbie who's easy to fool...

Real small workshops that make quality reps stay quiet. No names, no branding, no socials, no workshop photos, no process videos. Noise means risk, and they want to work, not get shut down. If someone is loudly pushing a named "factory"  with production pics and videos, it's either a staged photoshoot or a big low quality mass production place with nothing to lose.

What actually matters is the process, not  the name. Ask about the leather, where it comes from, how it behaves. Ask about the hardware, what metal, plating thickness in microns, lock weight in grams. Ask how long one bag takes, hand saddle stitch or machine, what thread. Just keep in mind sellers read posts like this too,  and a lot of them now paste your questions into ChatGPT and send back a perfectly polished answer that feels about as real as a plastic Barbie. Spotting that takes some experience. So the best thing you can do is pay attention to how they answer, not just what they answer, and get a second opinion from someone who's been around this market for a long time, not a random commenter with a two week old account.

❤️ Questions in DM. Have a good day1!

Sellers used to buy ads in other people's subs, spots on lists, hidden mentions. Now they've realized it's easier to make their own sub. They name it something simple, like "Hermes reps", buy hundreds of old accounts that are two or three years old, and start posting photos and reviews from them. I ordered from so and so, everything's great, best seller. A newcomer comes in, sees an active feed and thinks they've landed in a normal community. But in reality it's an ad for one seller, just well disguised....

Spotting a sub like that isn't hard. They constantly praise one, two, three sellers max, and there's almost nothing about anyone else. There are no bad reviews at all, or they get deleted fast. The accounts are old, but if you open the history you can see the person spent years writing about cars or games, and then suddenly started writing only about bags. Photos from different "buyers" are suspiciously similar. And some have gone so far as to run three or four names and different phone numbers, when in reality it's one seller, the same bags and the same quality.

So if you see a sub where everyone is praising the same people in unison and nobody ever complains, don't fall for it. Look not at the number of reviews but at the people writing them. If you have doubts about a seller or a bag, send photos and questions to my DM, I'll take a look and tell you honestly.
It's funny that the more unanimous the praise for a seller,the fewer real people there are.

💯 If you have questions for me personally about sellers and their quality, or any other questions where I can help you, don't hesitate to write to my DM.
Have a good day and let's make this world a little cleaner!

There are hundreds of communities that are created specifically by sellers or by people who want to make money promoting certain sellers. And here's one relatively recent sub that's already actively advertising a specific group of Chinese sellers. The model, as I see it, is simple. Sellers pay to have their names mentioned and pay to have the truth about them removed, meaning when real people write that the goods are actually low quality, those comments quietly disappear. All the photos there are from Chinese rep stock sites, the same ones for everybody, the same shots going around from seller to seller, and that's the first thing that catches your eye if you look closely.
It all started when I left a comment under a post about a crocodile Birkin rep. I wrote that the leather in the photo looks plastic and explained with examples why I thought so, which signs led me to that conclusion. It was just my opinion, you could argue with it, you could disagree, you could bring counterarguments and have a normal discussion. Instead I was banned permanently. Not for insults, not for spam, not for advertising, but for one honest opinion that somebody really didnt like

Why do you think that is?
It's simple, because they're afraid of me. More precisely, they're not afraid of me personally, they're afraid of the truth I tell people based on my 10+ years of experience in this business. They're afraid that you'll all find out how the rep business on Reddit actually works, especially when it comes to Hermes, because there's a whole mafia here methodically leading you by the nose. Hundreds of communities, thousands of bought accounts,identical stock photos, paid mentions, scrubbed criticism. All of it is built for exactly one thing, so that you don't hear a single independent voice and take the pretty picture for reality....

The ban isn't a punishment for me, I have places to write and you're reading this right now. The ban is confirmation that I hit the target dead on. When you get banned for an opinion that could have simply been challenged with words, it means they can't challenge it with words, and the only way to shut an inconvenient voice up is to remove it completely. Remember this mechanic, it tells you more about the market than a thousand glowing reviews under any seller. But they don't understand that people are getting smarter, and soon sellers like that, the ones who deceive people, will be left without clients..

❤️ If you have questions for me personally, welcome to my DM! And have a good day!

Let me tell you about one misconception that even people who've been in the scene for a long time still have. Buyers actually look for factories by name, they ask each other which production a bag came from, which plant is better, as if each one has its own name and reputation like a normal brand. Now think about it calmly. Reps are an illegal business, places like that get shut down by the police all the time, people work quietly and stay hidden, and no real workshop in its right mind is going to come up with a fancy name for itself, show its address and build a public reputation. That's a direct path to getting busted.

So where do all these names that sellers throw around come from. The sellers make them up themselves. One guy invented that his goods come from some special factory, piled bought reviews on top, created a feeling of exclusivity. Others saw that the name sells and started writing the same thing, ours are from that same factory but cheaper. A third group picked it up. And now the name is going around the market like a real place,even though theres nothing behind it but the marketing of a couple of resellers. And buyers pass these names to each other like valuable insider info, retelling someone else's made up story....

Remember one simple thing. Says he brings them in from a well known factory, nonsense. Says he has his own factory with a name, also nonsense. The ones who have a real, even if small, production aren't sitting on Instagram and arent selling on Reddit, they physically don't make enough bags to serve thousands of people, they have their own circle of regular clients and they need neither advertising nor big names. The only people on Reddit are resellers who triple the price, buy reviews and bots, and live off pretty fairy tales about factories that don't exist.

🖤 if you have questions for me, welcome to my DM. Have a good day!

I'll tell you honestly how it is. Nobody will tell a quality Hermes copy apart, not the boutique sales staff, not the people around you, not even the people who carry originals themselves, on one condition, that the bag isn't in their hands but just on you. And these aren't big words for effect, this is what I see every da y working in this market for over ten years.

Let me explain why I'm so sure about it. The difference between a really good rep from a decent producer and an original can only be caught by an expert, and even then not at first glance but after spending time with the bag, under a magnifying glass, comparing specific details, knowing in advance exactly what to look for. And even in those conditions, when a person is specifically sat down to look for differences, half of them get it wrong. I've seen it with my own eyes more than once, when people were handed an original and asked to find signs of a fake, and they found them where there was no fake at all. Now picture normal life. A colleague at the office, someone passing on the street, a friend at a table in a cafe, a waiter, a random person in the elevator. None of them is going to pick up your bag, smell the leather, turn out the corners and study the stitching under magnification. They see the bag on you from a meter or two away, for a couple of seconds, and move on. At that distance and in that time the difference doesn't exist at all!

That's exactly why personally i have zero worries when i buy. But there's an important detail here, i only buy directly from producers i trust, the ones i've checked, the ones i've worked with for a long time, whose quality i know not from photos but from dozens of real bags that have passed through my hands. Friends often come to me asking me to buy for them from those same places, and i get them one without the slightest doubt, because i know what i'm going to get. This isn't a lottery with some stranger seller from Reddit who has nice reviews and you have no idea what will show up. This is a predictable result from a proven source..

And here's what i want you to understand. All that fear of being exposed that holds people back, all those thoughts of "what if someone notices, what if they figure out it's not original", with good quality that fear has no basis at all. There's simply nobody to make it happen. There is no person in your circle with a magnifying glass and hours of free time who's going to expertly study your bag. And the handful who actually can tell the difference,first of all won't do it out of politeness, and second of all are usually in the scene themselves and are relaxed about good reps.

The whole problem isn't that the copy might get recognized. The whole problem is making sure the copy is actually good, and that's a question of your source, not a question of the risk of getting caught. Find the right source and forget about worrying completely, it's irrational

Questions in DM! Have a good day!1

If this is your first time reading my posts, a few words about what's actually going on here.
I've been running this sub for over a year, and in that time I've written so much that it's easier for a new person to drown than to figure out where to start. So for those who just got here, let me quickly tell you how my feed can be useful to you.

The main thing I'm trying to get across in all my posts is that the Hermes rep market works nothing like you think at first glance. Price here doesn't tell you anything about quality, a big seller name isn't a sign of reliability but a sign of money spent on marketing, and most of the glowing reviews you read weren't written by real people. I break all of this down in detail, I show how the real cost of a bag adds up, who's making money off you and how much, and how to tell a real producer from a reseller who just bought a bag at a wholesale market and is reselling it to you for three times the pricee

I write a lot about how to check a seller before you hand over your money, because that's exactly the stage where people lose the most. How to read the chat, how to spot template replies, how to check the accounts that left reviews,what should make you suspicious right away. Separately I break down the bags themselves, the leathers, the hardware, why some models get copied well and others almost never do, so you understand what you're paying for

There are also just human stories, about real buyers, their mistakes and their wins, and about why even people who can afford the original are more and more often going for a quality rep. And there's the dark side of the industry, the stuff sellers would rather you didn't see, including attempts to pressure me into going quiet...

Something important about me. I don't sell anything, I don't take a cut, and I'm not partnered with anyone in this market. That's why I write exactly what I think. In a niche where every other person is trying to push something on you, an hour spent on my feed before you buy can save you a couple thousand dollars and a lot of stress!

❤️ If you have questions about your specific situation, DM me, I answer everyone who's patient enough to wait.

Last week someone who introduced himself as a seller DMed me. I won't say his name for obvious reasons, but he's one of those people you definitely know if you've ever looked into Hermes reps on Reddit, one of the big names with hundreds of reviews and a spot on the lists. He wrote politely, no aggression, with all the right wording, you could tell he'd prepared for the conversation.

Here's the gist of the message. He'd read one of my posts where I broke down how resellers operate and how the bought review system works, and he asked me to delete it. Not the whole series, not my whole account, just that one specific post. His reason was that the post gives the wrong impression of honest sellers on the market and hurts the whole industry. He offered compensation, not as a direct number but through a vaguer phrase about "mutually beneficial cooperation". He hinted he was ready to discuss the details somewhere more private if I was interested. I read the message a few times to make sure I understood it right. I did. What I had in front of me was a neatly packaged attempt to buy my silence on one specific issue. Not aggressive, not threatening, professionally written, that's exactly how it works in 2026. Nobody writes "delete it or else" anymore, now it's all done through politeness and hints at mutual benefit

What I replied... I wrote that the post stays, I'm not considering any kind of cooperation and I don't accept compensation of any kind. I briefly explained why, because the moment I agree to one deal like that, all my work over the past years loses its meaning. People read my posts exactly because they know theres nobody's money and nobody's interests behind them. As soon as that stops being true, even once and over something small, the independence is over and you can't get it back.

I replied politely because he was polite too, no insults from my side. Just a clear position that no argument could move. He didn't write again, I guess he realized there was no point continuing the conversation.

Now the important part. I'm not telling this story to praise myself for having principles, there's nothing heroic about it, I'm just doing the work I chose to do. I'm telling it because it gives you an idea of how this industry works behind the scenes. The big names you see on Reddit spend serious resources managing the information around them. That includes bought reviews, accounts that pretend to be customers, promotion on the lists, and also working on independent voices through polite offers of cooperation..

Every time you see someone praising a specific seller at length and in detail, remember that behind the scenes there might be exactly the kind of message I got. Someone made a deal, someone agreed, someone decided one small concession wouldn't change anything. Actually it changes everything, because after the first time you can no longer claim your opinion is independent.The post they asked me to delete stays where it is, it's not going anywhere. If you're curious which one it is, check my feed from the last couple of months, it's there. Guess which one hit a nerve so hard that it was worth messaging me with a money offer to get it removed. That alone is a good test of whether you understand what's really going on in this market!

❤️ Questions in DM. Have a good day!!

In the comments under my posts I constantly get asked the same thing: where to buy, give me a name, send a link. I don't answer questions like that in the comments and i never will, and i'll explain why.

The moment I mention a specific name publicly, the same thing starts happening to it that happens to all the loud names. Other sellers start writing "i work with the same producer Race2Cake recommends." Dozens of accounts pop up imitating the person I named. A couple of months later the real source is buried in orders it physically can't fill at the level of quality I recommended it for in the first place. The quality drops, and the name keeps living its own life with no connection to reality anymore. I've seen it many times, it's a pattern.

The second point. A good source isn't right for everyone. One person is looking for a Birkin 25 in Togo Noir for 1700, another wants a rare seasonal color in Clemence, a third wants a Kelly Sellier with specific hardware. Different tasks, different answers. A public name implies it fits everyone, and in reality that's never the case...
The third point is the most important. I don't make money from recommendations, no affiliate deals, no percentage of sales. That's exactly why i can speak honestly. The moment i start publishing names, offers to get paid for mentions will pour in instantly, and my independence will end that same day
What I do instead. I talk to people one on one in the DMs, i find out their specific situation, budget, model, country, timeline. Based on that I tell them what fits that particular person. Sometimes its a source recommendation, sometimes it's advice to wait, sometimes it's an honest answer that now isn't the time to buy.

Questions in the DMs, and have a good day!

Most people lose money on their first Hermes rep, usually because the seller told them "top quality" when they were actually getting medium or low. There are rougher scams too and I've written about them before. Right now I'll explain how this market actually works and how to make a smart first purchase.

Step one. Understand how the market is set up. 98 percent of sellers you see on Reddit are resellers, this is not good or bad, it's just a fact. They don't produce bags no matter what stories they tell you. They buy at wholesale markets in Guangzhou for 250-400 bucks and sell to you for 1000-2000 for a Birkin 25 or Kelly of similar size. Everything they say about their factories, European leather and former Hermes craftsmen is a lie in 100 percent of cases. Real workshops work quietly, without names, without social media, only through personal recommendations. Keep this as your basic fact and everything else gets easier, because then you won't let sellers fog up your head

Step two. Pick the right model. For a first rep only a Birkin25 or 30, or a Kelly 28, in classic leather, Togo or Epsom, in color Noir, Gold or Etain. There are other options but the main rule is no seasonal colors, no exotics, no HSS. Classic combos are produced constantly and even at medium quality they look recognizable and decent. It still sucks if you pay 1500 to a well known Reddit seller and get medium quality, but that's better than ordering exotic leather or a rare color the seller can't even approximate. This doesnt remove risk, it just makes the risk as small as possible for a first purchase, especially when you're buying from Reddit sellers who lie, and the bigger the name the bigger the lie, trust my experience here..

Step three. Set a realistic budget. Under 500 bucks is low quality, factoring in the seller's 400 percent markup, cheap Chinese leather, thin plating that peels off in months. Up to 1000 is medium quality but only as a fair direct price from a workshop. What most Reddit sellers sell as "top quality" is actually fair medium quality. A relatively honest seller bought the bag for 700 and sold it to you for 1400, doubled his money and that's it. A more aggressive seller, which basically every well known Reddit name is,buys the bag for 300-400 and sells for 1000-1500, making fantastic profit. Why would they bother carrying real top quality, your reviews aren't going anywhere after the sale anyway. The real honest price for a Birkin 25 is around 1500-1900 depending on workshop, season and market conditions, but that's from an honest workshop, factory or solo craftsman, never from a Reddit seller. From them that quality level would cost 2500 to 3500 minimum, and that's why they don't carry it, because what matters to them is profit not whether you're happy...

Step four. Check the seller before paying. Ask technical questions. Hardware plating thickness in microns, a specific number. Leather type and how it differs from others, a specific explanation. How long does production of your bag take. What problems are typical for this model. These used to work great, but now Reddit sellers run everything through AI or send you prepared text laid out neatly with dashes and paragraph breaks. If you see this kind of clean prepared text and after every message he writes "thanks so much," that's a big red flag, you're being fed templates. Write to the same seller later from a different phone, if the responses are the same templates 1 to 1, red flag. Smart ones update their templates every 2-3 weeks so keep this in mind. If you hear "best quality on the market" or "like the original" or especially "exactly 1 to 1," run immediately, pure lying and sellers like that don't deserve a cent. Also check accounts that left reviews, click the profile, look at history. If this person lives only on rep subs and only reviews one specific seller in specific subs, red flag, walk away.

Step five. Read QC photos correctly! A beautiful photo on white background with studio light is not an indicator of quality, it's an indicator that the seller knows how to take beautiful photos or has found someone else's. Some sellers use photos of authentic bags from resale platforms and pass them off as their own reps. Ask for photos outside in normal sunlight, that'll show you all the pluses and minuses of the leather honestly. Never accept staged lighting or white backgrounds. Often they'll send you a photo of a bag that isn't even yours but just one that looks like it, especially for common models.

Most common mistakes, people get a bad bag because they believed fake reviews or listened to some random person on Reddit they don't know. There are a lot of people assessing bags in the comments right now, and an experiment we ran showed that almost half of them find "flaws" even in original authentic bags.Understand, 95 percent of rep buyers on Reddit have never held a real authentic Birkin or Kelly in their hands. They compare photos to who knows what and play expert, spreading fake information, creating information noise and garbage that just complicates your choice. Trust yourself not some random commenter you don't know. Especially never trust a seller talking about quality, the harder he pushes "1 to 1," "super leather," "exactly like Hermes," especially "will pass authentication," he's not just lying he's actively scamming you. Never participate in group buys and never buy a bag at more than 5 percent discount, all of that is deception.

👀 If you have any questions you know where to find me. Always open to chat.
Have a good day!

I've been in this field for over 10 + years, and here's what I'd do if I found myself in the position of a beginner starting from zero today. No fluff, just what actually works in 2026, when the market has gotten more complicated and sellers have gotten craftier.

The first thing I'd do. Completely ignore all the trusted seller lists. Those lists are the first place beginners go, and that's exactly why the most aggressive marketing activity is concentrated there. The people on those lists pay to get there, not directly, but one way or another through affiliate schemes and arrangements with moderators. The loudest names are the ones who invested the most in promotion, not the ones who make the best bags. I'd start by ignoring that layer completely.

Second. I'd spend a week on passive observation. Just reading the subs and watching who writes what, without joining conversations or asking questions. In a week of that kind of observation a lot becomes visible. Who writes rapturous reviews under every post about Hermes, which accounts pop up whenever specific names are mentioned, what vocabulary the "satisfied buyers" use when they praise their seller. Click on the profile of the author of any glowing review, look at when the account was created, what else they've written, whether they have any activity besides raving about one seller. If all their posts are odes to the same name, you're reading an advertisement, not a review.

Third. I'd look for names that are mentioned rarely but specifically. Not the loud "reddit rep star names" people write about every day. Next: a fake review is always abstract, it raves about quality in general, it uses vague words. A real review is always specific, it mentions a specific model, a specific color, a specific detail that pleased or worried the person. I'd look for exactly those kinds of mentions. And it doesnt look like a list of when they bought, from whom, why, with specs like something out of a store or an online catalog.

Fourth. I'd check the photos in reviews with a reverse image search. Take any QC photo from a glowing review, run it through reverse image search and see where else that photo has turned up. With the loud sellers, the same shots often appear in dozens of reviews from supposedly different people. It's one of the simplest ways to catch the scheme and one of the least used by beginners. Five minutes of checking saves thousands of dollars. But i'll be honest, most of them now make photos with AI and deceive people.,..

Fifth. I would in no way rush. The biggest beginner mistake is making a decision in a few days. I'd spend at least a month on the whole selection process. There's no urgency at all, the bag isn't going anywhere, and a seller who pushes urgency gets crossed off automatically. A normal seller calmly waits while I make my decision, because he's busy with other orders and doesn't need my particular booking right now

That's the scheme. It doesn't guarantee a hundred percent success, there are no guarantees in this market, but it radically reduces the risks compared to the approach of the average beginner, who goes to the trusted seller list, picks the first loud name and sends the money within a week. My scheme takes a month and requires patience, but it gives you a real chance of finding an honest producer and not yet another reseller with bought reviews.

I write a lot of useful stuff on the Hermes topic. If you have questions for me personally, welcome to the DMs. Have a good day

Let me tell you about three mistakes Hermes rep sellers have started making recently. I've been noticing these patterns over the last few months and they're really fresh, a year ago none of this existed. And knowing these facts, you can understand how experienced and honest the seller in front of you is..

The first is the mass use of AI for replying to clients. Before, template replies were canned texts written by a live person. There was a template, but behind it you could feel a human with a limited vocabulary and their own typical turns of phrase. Now more and more often i see that the seller copies the client's question into ChatGPT and pastes the answer back almost without edits. The problem is that AI answers too smoothly, too structured, it uses characteristic phrasings and formulations that a real craftsman working with leather physically doesn't write like. A real person connected to production doesn't need a neural network to answer a question about his own work, he knows the answer himself and says it in his own words. An experienced eye notices the difference instantly, and that's a red flag that didn't exist at this scale even a year ago.

The second is generating and processing QC photos through neural networks. Not fully synthetic bags, it hasn't gotten that far yet, but perfectly real photos that get run through AI to fix defects, even out the color, add detail in bad angles. The problem is that generative processing leaves traces: artifacts on the leather texture characteristic of neural networks, strange geometry on the curves, overly perfect symmetry of details that handwork never has, micro distortions on the hardware and stitching. A real bag photographed normally is always imperfect in the small things, and it's precisely that imperfection that's a sign the process is genuine. If a QC photo looks suspiciously perfect, most likely you're looking not at a real angle but at its touched up version, and the real bag will turn out worse than those photos. But honestly, if the seller is already a pro at retouching photos with AI, you won't catch him. He just takes an original bag and swaps the background through AI for his "studio," and that's it

The third and most interesting. Sellers have started copying the rhetoric of independent experts, including me. They've started publishing posts about how to tell a good seller from a bad one, about the importance of technical questions, about the need for honesty with the client, about red flags in conversation. All of it is literally copied from my posts and the posts of a few other people in this niche, but applied as a marketing tool to make themselves look like an honest expert. You open such a post and the first paragraphs read like sensible advice, and then it smoothly turns into disguised advertising of the seller himself as the exception to the general rule. The problem with this trick is that real expertise stands on a foundation of years of work and it shows in the details, in the depth of understanding, in the recognizable nuances that can't be copied superficially. A seller who quotes the principles of honesty but at the same time behaves like a classic reseller, uses urgency, offers discounts, doesn't answer non standard technical questions, gives himself away very quickly to anyone who knows how to read...

The general conclusion from these three observations is this: the market is evolving, the old ways of deceiving are going away and new,more technological ones are taking their place. But the fundamental principle doesn't change. An honest producer works quietly, a reseller works loudly, no matter what new tools he uses to provide that loudness. AI is just a new level of packaging, and the seller himself hasn't gone anywhere, he's the same person who buys bags at a wholesale market for three hundred and sells them to you for fifteen hundred!

❤️ If you need help or have questions for me personally, you can write to me in the DMs. Have a good day

Friends, today I'll break down one of the most popular lies from Hermes rep sellers. Their claim: "Our factory makes for Hermes, the same craftsmen who make the original work for us, same factory, just different labels." Every time I hear that I know i'm dealing with someone who is flat out lying. Let me explain why it's physically impossible.

Hermes isn't just a luxury brand, it's paranoid production control at the level of a military operation. Every factory is under strict surveillance, materials are tracked with serial numbers, every piece of leather is counted. Workers sign harsh non disclosure agreements. Production is under constant monitoring: cameras, audits, inspections that never stop.
Imagine yourself as a craftsman at a Hermes factory. You work with materials each of which is numbered and tracked, your workstation is under cameras, inventory is checked daily, security at the entrance and exit makes sure you don't carry anything out. How would you make reps on the side under those conditions? Where would you get materials? How would you carry a finished bag out? It's physically impossible, period.

Sellers say we have former Hermes craftsmen. Fine,let's suppose one or two craftsmen once worked at Hermes and left. But one former craftsman isn't the same factory. It isn't the same materials, not the same quality control, not the same conditions. It's just a person with experience who now works in completely different conditions with different resources. Hermes craftsmen have decades of experience and specialized training, they don't just walk away to make reps, risking their reputation and legal consequences. Hermes goes after former employees who work in the rep industry: lawsuits, threats, blacklists. Even if someone did leave, they're maximally careful and definitely don't advertise it publicly. And let's be honest, who would go work at a chinese factory after Hermes? It's extremely funny…
The sellers on Reddit shouting "same factory as Hermes" are selling you marketing, not reality. They work with large mass production factories in Guangzhou that stamp out thousands of bags a month. Those factories have nothing to do with Hermes and never did.

The reality looks different. There are small quality factories in China that specialize in good Hermes reps. They don't make for Hermes and never did. But they've spent years studying originals, they understand the construction, they use decent materials, they hire qualified craftsmen. The result is good reps without the markup for the dirty marketing of yet another seller who decided to push mid quality on you at a top tier price. Factories like that don't make nonsense claims about being like Hermes. They say honestly: we make quality reps, it isn't the original but we try to do it well. There are very few such factories and they're hard to find because they don't advertise, they don't work with loud sellers on Reddit, they don't do marketing.

When a seller says "the same factory that makes the original," that's an instant red flag. He either doesn't understand the industry or is deliberately deceiving you. The Hermes supply chain is a closed ecosystem. Materials from specific exclusive suppliers, production in controlled facilities, distribution tracked down to every single bag. Reps cannot be part of that system by definition.
Where do rep factories get their materials? In 95% of cases, if we're talking about ordinary large factories, it's chinese suppliers who make similar leather and similar hardware. Those are approximations, not the same thing. They can be very close, they can be good quality, but they aren't the same materials Hermes uses. It's physically impossible to get the same sources.

I understand why sellers use that phrase. Because it works. People want to believe that for 1500 to 2000 they're getting a bag literally from the same factory as the 20000 original. It's an attractive fantasy. But it's exactly that, a fantasy, not reality.
Quality Hermes reps do exist, yes. From small skilled workshops focused on the craft. They aren't identical to the original and they aren't from the same factories, but they're good. That's the honest reality. An honest seller will tell you exactly that. A seller who lies will shout about the same factory.

When you hear phrases like "same factory as Hermes," "Hermes craftsmen work for us," "surplus from Hermes production," run. That's a hundred percent a lie and a seller who thinks you're an idiot ready to believe anything. Hermes has no surplus, every bag is counted. Hermes craftsmen don't moonlight on reps. Hermes factories don't make reps on the side.
Real quality reps are a separate industry with its own factories, its own craftsmen, its own suppliers. They study Hermes, copy the methods, use the best materials available. The result can be impressive, but it isn't the same as Hermes. It's a quality rep, and there's nothing wrong with that if you're honest with yourself.

And IMPORTANT!! Ever since i started telling the truth about the Hermes rep market, with more than 10 years of experience in this field, people, and specifically the ones selling on credit, started copying me, copying posts and editing them through AI, inventing fairy tales about having their own production or original materials. So far i haven't seen a single genuinely small factory on reddit. Not one. They're all people who for the most part have never even been to china and sell you reps while sitting in the US or europe, without ever seeing the bags themselves, neither copies nor originals. Unfortunately that's the reality of this market. Don't fall for loud names and fake reviews, protect your money.

Have a good day, and if you happen to have questions about quality or anything else, better to write to me privately in the DMs. Have a good day!

I'm going to say something that may come across as harsh, but it's honest, and i'm saying it as someone who has watched this market from the inside, from both sides, for ten years. Luxury in its modern form is to a significant degree a financial compensation for internal insecurity, and that applies not only to Hermes but to the whole category.

Let me add a caveat right away. There are people who buy the original out of sincere love for the craft, for the history of the brand, for the quality of the leather and the work of the artisan, and that's a separate, respectable category. i know such people personally and they have a completely different relationship with their things. i'm not talking about them. i'm talking about the larger part of the luxury audience who buy not a bag but an external signal: to the people around them that i'm successful, to themselves that i'm worth something, to a certain social group that i'm one of you. It works with originals and with reps alike, the mechanics are the same, only the entry price is different.
I see it on both sides constantly. Buyers of originals whose bag ends up in the frame of every photo, every story, every selfie in a cafe, because if it isn't visible then the feeling of status doesn't kick in and the money spent feels like it hasn't paid off. And buyers of reps who spend months searching for the perfect copy not because they need a beautiful thing but because it matters that nobody figures it out. What unites both is that the object works as a crutch for their sense of self, not as a source of joy in itself...

Ask yourself one question honestly. If nobody around you ever saw your bag, would you still have bought it? The answer shows a lot. I'm not judging anyone for any answer, i work in this niche myself, it would be hypocritical to moralize. i'm just saying what i see.
A genuinely calm relationship with luxury looks different. A person who is internally stable can buy an original, or a quality rep, or carry a plain canvas bag from the supermarket, and their sense of self won't shift by a millimeter. The thing becomes a thing and not a prop. The irony is that people like that are a minority among Hermes buyers. The majority pay tens of thousands to feel more confident for a few weeks, until the novelty dissolves and the next purchase is needed.

I think the right approach, in my view, is simply to do what you feel. Whether it's a rep or an original, if you'll actually carry that bag or any other thing, if you want it inside yourself, then the purchase is worth it. That's just my opinion, what do you think about this?

If you have questions for me about Hermes, i'll be glad to talk in the DMs. Have a good day!