When we are in Paris, we often make a trip over to Hermès, which was founded in 1837 as a Paris harness workshop, and it quickly became synonymous with the equestrian world, producing saddles, harnesses, and other riding equipment. Horses have stayed central to the house ever since — for six generations, the horse has guided the company, and the saddle-making workshop at 24 Faubourg Saint-Honoré remains its reference profession. I picked up a bottle of it’s first scent for men, Equipage, and we promptly named our polo team after the inspiration we felt by this word, meaning “team,” back in 2004. And, in 2026, we don’t have to make the trek to Paris anymore, as Hermès has a store in Denver now, with one saddle in the shop. Ok, well, it’s not going to replace the Parisian’s store anytime soon.
Founder Thierry Hermès was born in 1801 and moved from Prussia to France in 1828, then apprenticed as a horse-harness maker in Pont-Audemer, Normandy — a region long known for leather craft due to its horse breeding and skin trade. After finishing his training, he returned to Paris and set up his own workshop near Boulevard des Capucines, manufacturing harnesses, bridles, and horse collars for the finest stagecoaches. His stitching quality became legendary — durable enough that competitors couldn’t replicate it — and he won a first-class medal at the 1867 Exposition Universelle, which opened doors to clients like Tsar Nicholas II and Empress Eugénie.
After Thierry died in 1878, his son Charles-Émile Hermès made the pivotal decision that would define the house for generations: in 1880, he relocated the workshop to 24 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. The location wasn’t random — it sat directly on the route riders took toward the Bois de Boulogne and the Longchamp racecourse, so other saddlers soon followed Hermès to the same street. A boutique opened at that address in 1889, and the address remains the largest Hermès store in the world today, later expanded with neighboring buildings in 1978 and 2007.
In 1889, Charles-Émile’s sons Adolphe and Émile-Maurice expanded the offerings to include horse blankets and silk riding helmets, then took over the business in 1902 as Hermès Frères. Shortly after, Émile-Maurice began supplying saddles to the Russian emperor and created the Haut à Courroies bag, designed for horsemen to carry a saddle and boots — the piece that essentially birthed Hermès’ entire handbag lineage.
The saddle-making tradition still runs through that same address. Since 1837, each Hermès saddle has been handmade by a single artisan, custom-fitted using measurements of both rider and horse — including a tool called the Equiscan to capture the precise curve of the horse’s back — a process that takes roughly 30 hours per saddle. Today, workshops at 24 Faubourg Saint-Honoré still turn out between 400 and 500 saddles a year, made by a small team of about seven artisans who shape every component — the flaps, panels, and cantle — from the house’s own leather. As former Hermès chief Jean-Louis Dumas famously put it, according to the piece, the horse remains the house’s first client, the rider its second.
It’s a nice throughline to the Équipage fragrance and the polo gear we discussed — all of it traces back to this one workshop on the Faubourg, where the company never actually left the saddle business even as it grew into scarves, bags, and perfume.
Hermès’ formal tie to the sport of polo reportedly began more than thirty years ago. There’s also a family thread here: despite the Hermès clan’s long equestrian image, polo wasn’t actually part of the family until Patrick Hermès took it up — he started in other horse sports like show jumping, dressage, and steeplechase before eventually turning to polo. Vintage advertising confirms the brand was already leaning on polo imagery by the late 1920s, running saddlery ads featuring polo players in period sporting magazines.
Where it shows up today
- Saut Hermès — the house’s own annual show-jumping event at the Grand Palais in Paris, launched in 2010, known as one of the sport’s most demanding competitions, with tight turns and jumps over 1.6 meters. Not polo itself, but the same equestrian-sponsorship instinct.
- Product line — Hermès sells literal “technical polo” shirts as part of its Equestrian collection, engineered with breathable, moisture-wicking fabric for riders.
- Accessories — decades of equestrian-motif silk ties, scarves, and leather goods that draw directly on polo and riding iconography (horsebits, bridles, spurs).
- Équipage, the fragrance we just talked about, fits this same lineage — inspired by the equestrian universe, with a bottle shaped like a carriage lantern and a cap styled after a riding hat.
Hermès didn’t start as a polo brand — it started as a saddler — but polo became one of the sport’s most visible expressions of that heritage, reinforced by the Hermès family’s own involvement in the game and carried through in ties, apparel, and fragrance branding today.
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Equipage in American English
- Name: “Équipage” evokes the equipment needed for traveling in comfort and style, and today symbolizes sharing and team spirit in French.
- Bottle design: The bottle is inspired by the lanterns of horse-drawn carriages, with a black cap reminiscent of a riding hat.
- Scent profile: It’s aromatic and woody, blending lively marjoram with herbal tarragon and milky sandalwood. Other listings round out the fuller note pyramid with top notes of Brazilian rosewood, nutmeg flower, clary sage, bergamot, and orange, a heart of carnation, pine needles, cinnamon, lily-of-the-valley, and jasmine, and a base of oakmoss, vetiver, patchouli, tonka bean, musk, and amber.
- Mood: Described as restrained yet virile, artfully poised between strength and subtlety.
- Collection: It belongs to Hermès’ Parfums-Fondateurs collection, which draws on the house’s heritage — each fragrance paired with a name, scent, and color.
It’s still in production today, sold in a 3.38 oz / 100 mL bottle for around $143–$165 depending on retailer (Hermès direct vs. specialty fragrance sites). Given the equestrian branding — carriage lanterns, riding-hat caps, “equipage” itself referring to a traveling retinue or turnout — it fits right into that same world of horse culture and heritage fashion houses we’ve been talking about, alongside Ralph Lauren’s Polo line and Chanel’s own riding-inspired roots.
