Hermes Kelly 25 'Midas', 18k yellow gold hardware

From a saddle bag to a princess's bag

The Kelly started as horse gear. In 1892 Hermes, the Paris harness maker Thierry Hermes founded in 1837, introduced the Haut a courroies, a large leather bag designed to carry a rider's boots and saddle. In the 1930s Robert Dumas, son-in-law of Emile-Maurice Hermes, decided to make a smaller version for women, and in 1935 the bag launched as the Sac a Main de Voyage, a travel handbag that could take a shoulder strap.

The bag got its modern name from Hollywood. In 1954 costume designer Edith Head bought Hermes accessories for Alfred Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief, and Grace Kelly is said to have fallen in love with the bag. In 1956, by then Princess of Monaco, she was photographed holding it during her first pregnancy, and in the late 1950s Hermes renamed it the Kelly. Accounts of these early dates are not uniform: one auction history traces the Haut a courroies to 1852, places the Grace Kelly moment in 1955 and dates the official renaming to 1977.

A Kelly takes about 18 to 20 hours to make and is almost entirely the work of a single craftsman. Hermes trains its leather workers for an average of 18 months. Today the bag comes in seven sizes from 15 to 50 cm, around 20 materials and around 50 colors.

The Midas touch

The Midas is named for the king of Greek myth whose touch turned everything to gold. The idea is literal: instead of plated metal, the clasp, the padlock and part of the handle are made of solid 18k yellow gold, so that the bag looks as if Midas himself had picked it up by the handle. Published descriptions stress the difficulty of the assembly, in which the metal has to follow the leather precisely.

Although the Kelly design dates to 1935, the gilded Midas version did not appear until 2023. Every example documented in the sources for this page is dated 2023 and is a Kelly 25 in Sellier construction. Hermes does not publish how many were made; auction catalogs describe the black calf version as a limited edition and the crocodile version as exceptional and rare.

Two versions have reached auction. The edition this page tracks pairs the gold with black box calf, a smooth, firm calfskin. A second version pairs the same gold with shiny black porosus (saltwater) crocodile; its catalog records a gold weight of 184.72 grams and describes the gold as covering both the hardware and the handle.

Why black box calf

Box calf is not an exotic skin, and that is the point of this edition. Black box calf holds a special place in the house's history: every artisan starting out at Hermes begins training by building a Kelly Sellier in black box calf, and it is said that an artisan who can make a flawless one is ready for any other design the house makes.

Sellier, French for saddler, is the construction that suits it. The seams face outward and their edges are sealed with polished resin, giving sharp, rigid edges and an architectural outline, and it is usually made in firm leathers such as Epsom and box calf. The other Kelly construction, Retourne ('turned over'), is sewn inside out and then turned, which gives softer corners.

Put together, the Midas is the training bag of the Hermes workshop, the black box Kelly Sellier, finished in solid gold. It is one of the few Kellys whose value rests on its hardware and edition rather than on a crocodile or alligator skin.

At auction

A 2023 black box Midas Kelly 25 Sellier was offered at auction in Hong Kong on April 10, 2024, with an estimate of HK$900,000 to 1,200,000. It came with its clochette, lock, keys, felt, a precious stones and metals certificate, care booklet, raincoat, dust bag and box, and sold for about $157,000. That made it the fifth most expensive Hermes bag sold at auction in the first half of 2024 and the eighth most expensive of the full year. It was the only bag on the first-half list not made from an exotic skin.

One later published account gives the sale as HK$1,206,500, or $155,000, and dates it to April 2025. The description matches the 2024 Hong Kong lot, and the sources do not show whether this is the same sale misdated or a second one, so this page counts one sale.

The crocodile version followed. A shiny black porosus crocodile Sellier Kelly Midas 25, dated 2023, sold at auction in Paris on April 29, 2025, for EUR 201,600 against an estimate of EUR 200,000 to 300,000. Because crocodile is a protected species, the lot could only be shipped within the European Union or collected in Paris.

How to recognize one

The black box Midas is a Kelly 25 Sellier: 25 cm wide, 19 cm high and 9 cm deep, with an 8.25 cm handle drop, in black box calf with a tonal chevre lining. Many black Kellys carry gold-colored hardware, so color alone proves nothing; what sets the Midas apart is that the metal is solid 18k gold and that the gold extends onto the handle.

Gold weight is part of the documentation. The 2024 auction example's gold totaled 183.18 grams and came with a precious stones and metals certificate; the crocodile version's catalog lists 184.72 grams. A Midas offered without its metals certificate is missing part of what makes it a Midas.

The edition has also been seen in public. In June 2025, during her wedding celebrations in Venice, Lauren Sanchez Bezos was photographed carrying a Kelly Midas, which drew wide press attention to the edition.

The numbers

Dimensions

25 x 19 x 9 cm; handle drop 8.25 cm

Material

Black box calf; tonal chevre goatskin lining

Hardware

Solid 18k yellow gold clasp, padlock and handle elements

Gold weight

183.18 g in total (2024 Hong Kong example); 184.72 g on the porosus crocodile version

Construction

Sellier

Date stamp

2023 on all documented examples

Production quantity

Not published; described as a limited edition

Timeline

1. 1837

   Thierry Hermes founds a harness workshop in Paris.

2. 1892

   Hermes introduces the Haut a courroies, a bag for a rider's boots and saddle.

3. 1935

   Robert Dumas's smaller women's version launches as the Sac a Main de Voyage.

4. 1954

   Edith Head buys Hermes accessories for To Catch a Thief, starring Grace Kelly.

5. 1956

   Grace Kelly, now Princess of Monaco, is photographed with the bag during her first pregnancy; in the late 1950s Hermes renames it the Kelly.

6. 2023

   The Kelly Midas appears, in black box calf and in porosus crocodile, with solid 18k yellow gold hardware.

7. Apr 10, 2024

   A 2023 black box Midas Kelly 25 Sellier sells at auction in Hong Kong for about $157,000.

8. Apr 29, 2025

   A 2023 porosus crocodile Kelly Midas 25 sells at auction in Paris for EUR 201,600.

9. Jun 2025

   Lauren Sanchez Bezos carries a Kelly Midas during her wedding celebrations in Venice.

The world in 2023

• Jan 1, 2023

  Croatia adopts the euro, becoming the 20th member of the eurozone.

• Feb 6, 2023

  Earthquakes of magnitude 7.8 and 7.7 strike Turkey and Syria, killing more than 59,000 people.

• Mar 10, 2023

  Silicon Valley Bank fails, the largest US bank failure since the 2008 financial crisis.

• Mar 2023

  Saudi Arabia and Iran agree to restore diplomatic relations in talks mediated by China.

• Mar 14, 2023

  OpenAI introduces GPT-4.

• 2023

  Hermes reports revenue of EUR 13.4 billion, up from EUR 11.6 billion in 2022.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Hermes Kelly 25 'Midas', 18k yellow gold hardware is number 7 of 100 in the handbags entries of the FLOAT 100. 19 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (7 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Every new Hermes artisan begins by building a Kelly Sellier in black box calf, the same leather and construction as this Midas.
• The Midas name refers to the king of Greek myth whose touch turned everything to gold; the gold continues partway up the handle.
• The gold on the 2024 auction example weighed 183.18 grams and came with its own precious metals certificate.
• Of the 11 most expensive Hermes bags sold at auction in the first half of 2024, the Midas was the only one not made from an exotic skin.
• A crocodile Kelly Midas could only be shipped within the European Union or collected in person after its 2025 Paris sale, because of protected-species rules.
• The Kelly design is nearly 90 years older than the Midas: the bag launched in 1935, and the gold version arrived in 2023.