Hermès Birkin 30 Geranium Shiny Niloticus Crocodile Palladium Hardware 2015

Niloticus is the Nile crocodile. Its scales are larger and less uniform than the small-scaled skins, and that irregularity is the character of the hide — the pattern changes rhythm as it runs down a panel rather than repeating, so no two bags cut from it are laid out the same way. On a Birkin 30 the flap and front are where that reads clearest.

The shine is not a coating. The skin is polished by hand with an agate stone until the scales take a glass-like surface, and on a colour this strong the effect is severe: Geranium is a deep, warm red, and glazed, it holds light at the raised centre of each scale and drops to shadow in the seams between them. It is the piece in this catalog that photographs least like itself.

Palladium hardware, cool silver and tarnish-resistant, is the colder of the two options and the one that stops the red from running hot.

Blind stamp T (2015). In excellent condition, with its original dust bag. CITES documentation on file. Authenticated in-house.