Hermes creates $16,000 basketball for US store

PARIS - French luxury fashion group Hermes, famed for its exclusive handbags and scarves, said Friday it had created a US$12,900 (S$16,400) basketball to grace its renovated Los Angeles store.

The blue calf leather ball is handstitched and embossed with the house's trademark H sign along with the inscription Beverly Hills.

It was to be in the shop window of a newly renovated Hermes store on posh Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills but "someone asked me to keep it aside for him," Hermes boss Axel Dumas told AFP.

"I think we would like to make two or three more," he said.

The Hermes store on Rodeo Drive opened in 1997. The company recently bought the building and the new store is spread over 950 square metres (10,226 square feet).