The JaneFinds Journal · Design History
The Hermès HAC: The Story of the Haut à Courroies
From equestrian equipment to a life in travel. The house’s first bag, understood on its own terms.
Before the Birkin, there was a bag built for a saddle. The Haut à Courroies, usually shortened to HAC, began with the practical requirements of a rider: room for boots and equestrian equipment, an opening that could accommodate them, and a closure that secured the contents. Hermès identifies it as the house’s first bag. Its place in the story is not that of a later variation. It is a beginning.1
The HAC deserves more than a footnote in the history of its descendants. Look at it as an object in its own right: substantial volume, a compact carrying arc, a flap restrained by straps. The design carries the memory of what it was made to do. That is more interesting than treating it as a familiar handbag enlarged.
Before the bag: a house built around the horse
Thierry Hermès opened his Paris harness workshop on rue Basse-du-Rempart in 1837. His work served a city in which the horse was part of ordinary movement, not simply a leisure pursuit. In 1880, his son Charles-Émile moved the workshops to 24 Faubourg Saint-Honoré and opened a store, where harnesses and saddles were made to measure.2
This is the useful starting point for understanding the HAC. The house did not first invent a fashionable bag and then attach an equestrian story to it. The skills, customers and equipment came before the silhouette. A carrier for riding kit extended an existing craft into a different kind of object.
When did the Haut à Courroies begin?
Hermès’ own published chronology dates the Haut à Courroies to around 1900 and credits Émile Hermès with its design. The date 1892 also appears in auction-house histories, including Christie’s account of the HAC once owned by Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg. Those sources do not give precisely the same date. The responsible reading is that the HAC emerged around the turn of the twentieth century, well before the Birkin’s creation in 1984.345
The distinction matters when looking at vintage pieces. The age of the design is not the age of every example. A HAC made in 1981 or 2021 belongs to that long lineage; it is not an object made at the house’s founding, nor necessarily an exact reproduction of the earliest version.
The construction tells the story
The name Haut à Courroies draws attention to height and straps. Its identity lies in the relationship between the body, the handles and the closure. The upright profile leaves a substantial expanse below a relatively short carrying arc. The flap and straps organize the opening, rather than sitting on the surface as decoration. Sotheby’s identifies shorter handles, tubular strap guides and a square-tipped spindle among the classic HAC’s distinguishing details.6
Hermès describes the closure as two straps passing through hasps and fastening with a turn clasp. The opening is designed to spread wide. These are functional decisions with a strong visual consequence: the fastening creates a horizontal line across a generous, upright volume.1
“Upright” does not mean that every HAC body must be taller than it is wide. Nor can its identity be reduced to a size number. Read the actual outline, handle drop, depth and hardware together. The silhouette is a set of relationships, not a rule that can be recreated by stretching another bag.
From riding equipment to the journey
As ways of traveling changed, the HAC found a different role. Hermès describes its transition into a travel bag alongside the arrival of the motor vehicle. What had accommodated equestrian equipment could serve a traveler’s belongings without surrendering the original design’s character.1
The appeal of a travel HAC is easy to understand in use. Its scale makes it an object you pack, lift and carry deliberately. Its handles suggest the hand rather than a casual assumption that every format should slip over the shoulder. The journey becomes part of the way the bag is read: less a decorative accessory, more a personal piece of luggage.
That makes travel imagery appropriate to its history, but not every nostalgic image is historical evidence. A period-inspired illustration can evoke a world of departures, cars and craftsmanship. It should not masquerade as a dated Hermès advertisement or a documentary photograph of an event that never took place.
A HAC before Jane Birkin’s Birkin
One particularly revealing chapter belongs to Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg. Christie’s documented their black leather HAC 50, cataloged circa 1970, which they used as luggage between London and Paris. Its account includes a photograph captioned January 1971 at Heathrow, with Gainsbourg carrying the HAC. The bag was already part of their life before the handbag bearing Birkin’s name existed.4
Birkin later described that HAC as an inspiration for her namesake bag. Hermès dates the Birkin’s creation to 1984, following her encounter with Jean-Louis Dumas on a flight. That later design is part of the HAC’s legacy, not the explanation for its existence. The historical direction runs from HAC to Birkin.45
A living design, not a frozen relic
Longevity does not require one unchanging material or scale. The HAC has appeared in smaller and larger formats, and in leather, textile combinations and exotic skins. The model’s continued development is visible in the house’s HAC à Dos and Hacademi: distinct contemporary formats that retain selected elements of its straps, flap and clasp.617
The archive offers different ways to see that continuity. A textile panel can make the leather framing more apparent. A dark, tonal composition can draw attention to the silhouette and hardware. An unfamiliar finish can make the construction newly visible. None of those changes turns the HAC into a design that began with the Birkin.
What matters to a collector
Start with the individual object, not the mythology. Establish its dimensions, material, date evidence, condition and included accessories. Look closely at the handles and their attachments, the folds at the opening, the corners and the operation of the closure. Ask for clear photographs rather than relying on the romance of an old stamp or the word “rare.”
For a travel-size piece, consider the filled weight and how it will be carried. For a vintage example, ask what has been repaired or replaced. A beautiful surface and a sound structure are different questions. The design’s historical importance does not establish the condition, provenance or value of a particular bag.
At JaneFinds, the HAC’s attraction begins with its independence. It has purpose, scale and a history that do not need to be borrowed from another model. To collect one is to look past the best-known chapter and return to the design that was already there.
The HAC was the original. Its descendants made that language famous.
Explore the JaneFinds HAC Archive for individual examples, and consult the JaneFinds Condition Guide when reading their records.