Today I visited a male craftsman at the Shebag handmade workshop to film a session on the edge painting process of Hermes bags.

Distinct from the cheap, hard, quick-drying edge paints on the market, the original Hermes factory uses a high-content vegetable-tanned mixed edge oil. It features extremely high flexibility, does not crack when bent, and does not harden after long-term use. It fits the natural elasticity of the leather, which is the key to durability.

Shebag rejects the “one-size-fits-all” thick coating. Instead, we adopt a cyclic process of “thin coating — air drying — wet sanding and polishing — thin coating again.” This results in smooth and rounded edges with no glue overflow or burrs, providing a matte, delicate visual texture without oily reflections.

Shebag uses pure manual brushwork combined with customized edge-trimming tools for shaping. The curvature of the corners is adjusted according to the bag’s stitching lines, ensuring natural transitions at the edges. This avoids the stiff right angles and uneven thickness common in machine-painted edges.

After the leather pieces are cut, the craftsman first manually sands the edges to thin out burrs and flatten the surface. This ensures the leather cut is smooth, which determines the adhesion of the edge oil—a cost-saving step that many replica factories omit.

The first layer is a base thin coat. Using a specialized fine-tip edge pen, a base layer is applied at a steady speed along the leather edge, controlling the amount of oil to prevent overflow. It is left to air dry naturally without baking or accelerated drying to prevent the edge oil from cracking later.

Fine wet sanding and polishing. Once the first layer is completely dry, it is lightly sanded by hand with fine-grit sandpaper to remove tiny bumps and brush marks. This makes the edge extremely smooth, replicating the delicate touch found at boutiques.

Multi-layer coating and shaping. The process of thin coating, air drying, and sanding is repeated for 3–4 rounds to build up the thickness layer by layer. The final round involves precise arc-trimming, adjusting the roundness of corners for different models like the Mini Kelly or Birkin to maintain consistent logic across the bag’s shape.

Final color fixing and softening. Finally, a surface softening and matte treatment is applied to remove excess gloss. This restores the low-profile, misty matte texture of the Hermes factory edge paint, making it feel warm and smooth to the touch without being sticky.