Thierry Hermès, the founder of the House, was born in 1801 in Kréfeld, in Rhénanie-Westphalie, which was, at the time, a French territory, following Bonaparté's victories. The fact that he perfectly embodied the personality of one of the twelve inhabitants of Olympus, the god of merchants and travellers, is due to a dash of coincidence and a great deal of patience and willpower. Thierry was the son of an innkeeper, the godson of a master suede worker.

In his younger years, 1815-1830, Europe was on the move and easing into peaceful times after the great Empire wars. Thierry came to Paris in 1828 to marry Christine Pierrart. Two of his three children, including Charles-Emile, who would later work with him, were born in Normandy, in the Pont-Audemer township, where Thierry worked as a saddler for a short while. He went back there during the Commune de Paris and came back to die in Neuilly in 1878.

He worked for coachmakers and wholesalers, supplying them with the bridles and harnesses he produced with his workers in the workshop he founded in 1837 at 56, rue Basse-du-Rempart. His business was modest, limited, but his devotion to quality, his integrity and his professional conscience were such that his name spread quickly and suppliers passed on his address to the owners of the most beautiful coaches in Paris. In 1837, the railroad made its grand entrance, but the civilisation of the horse still had a few good decades left in it and the wheel of progress, which was an apriority threat to an artisanal workshop like Thierry Hermès', allowed him to bloom and grow.