Social media algorithms know me better than I do. Who knew I’d get such joy from watching Love Luxury, a handbag reseller with a YouTube channel that typically features bereft women trying to sell Birkin bags gifted from former lovers? “It is just too painful to keep,” one says. “Oh, and the stickers are still on … can I get $50,000 for it?”
It is everything I want to see: beautiful and inaccessible fashion, romantic drama, and regularly updated economic lessons about artificial scarcity. What’s not to love?
Now I can even partake. Luxus, the aptly named asset manager, has a hedge fund that buys Hermes Birkin and Kelly bags on the secondary market and then flips them. The first round raised $1 million, bought 36 bags, sold them and claimed it earned a 40.6% return. There are plans to grow in 2026.
That return would’ve been even higher if the fund had bought on the primary market (in this case, a Hermes boutique). But it is nearly impossible to buy a bag that way, as I know from personal experience: You need a relationship with a sales associate who will advocate for you when a bag becomes available. If you then turn around and resell your bag, you could destroy your relationship and be shut out of the primary market forever.
Continue reading the entire piece here at Bloomberg Opinion (paywall)
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Allison Schrager is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal.
Photo by Edward Berthelot/Getty Images