Posted on 08/05/2025 10:12:23 PM PDT by nickcarraway
As a pop-up handbag auction opens in London, a fashion frenzy is gripping venerable auction houses – and sending prices sky high. Can fashion ever be on a par with a Picasso?
"I like my money where I can see it. Hanging in my closet," says Carrie Bradshaw in the 2000s TV series Sex and the City, and it would appear that an increasing number of collectors do, too, with archival fashion auctions fetching record prices. Just last month, Sotheby's auction house in Paris sold a battered Hermès bag owned by its namesake, Jane Birkin, for £7m ($9.2m). And now Sotheby's in London has just opened a luxury pop-up salon, auctioning pieces by Hermès, Rolex and Cartier, running until 22 August.
But it wasn't always like this. Many auction houses have traditionally viewed their fashion divisions as tangential, with the brand-name recognition of some of the items drawing buyers in, and towards bigger-ticket items like paintings or sculptures.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
My brother and his wife go to estate sales as their hobby; they get some amazing deals, as they live in a town that used to have the most millionaires in the country.
That is called intelligent logical rational practicality. In the end it is just a purse, a heavy duty plastic bag would even do the same job... lol
The status competition is senseless to me. Like absolutely needing a name brand solid gold hammer. Why? A hammer is just a hammer.
Was it a decent bag? When you consider that getting your nails done can run into three figures, $1K for a purse seems almost reasonable.
Same. But my wife is an ER doc and her money is her play money. She socks away max retirement and 20% more for a rainy day fund and the rest she can spend as she sees fit. I cover all the real bills and sock away exactly the same and have plenty to buy guns or whatever I desire to play with.
If she wants a different $5000 Prada purse for each day of the week and doesn’t complain about my Purdy shotgun, it’s all good.
“””I like my money where I can see it. Hanging in my closet,” says Carrie Bradshaw in the 2000s TV series Sex and the City, and it would appear that an increasing number of collectors do, too, with archival fashion auctions fetching record prices.””
I really hope... that on Judgement Day.... these people have found a better reason (or excuse) for the things that they “valued” while on earth. They’re gonna need it.
IIRC, eBay was originally started as a site to sell/trade Pez dispensers.
I think the mistake many are making on this thread is viewing this from a ‘utility’ perspective. If taken from that viewpoint, then it is a stupid or frivolous purchase.
However, the rationale behind such purchases often has less to do with utility and more to do with perceived value, scarcity, and the ability to prove provenance. When these three elements converge, they create the conditions for substantial future resale value. Which is why you often see serious money investing into things that many would consider ‘silly.’
It’s also worth considering that certain luxury goods, such as this bag, function as unconventional stores of value. They are discreet, highly portable, and, in some cases, relatively liquid. For example, I began collecting watches well before the 2018 to 2021 market boom. When values surged, it became remarkably easy to liquidate pieces and transfer capital in ways that would have been far more complex through traditional channels. A single carry-on can discreetly transport five high-end watches (and their official purchase papers) worth hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of watches. Which shows that for a bag like this, significantly FAR more can be easily moved without anyone batting an eye.
Viewed solely through the lens of practical function, the bag may appear to be a poor purchase. Hence the comments from many FReepers about how silly it is.
But capital is constantly in search of vehicles (traditional or otherwise) that combine stability, appreciation potential, and discretion. There is actually a lot of money looking for such assets. I am not talking about a pearl necklace or a starter DateJust, but rather very highend items that are very rare. This bag is easily that, being the first Birkin ever, especially considering that brand new Birkins are very difficult to get and go for many thousands. From that standpoint, this is not an illogical acquisition.
The same logic applies in other asset classes. To some, a $50 watch is a ‘silly’ purchase considering that almost everyone carries a phone that can tell time. Why buy a watch?
But to others, acquiring a Daytona 24 Hours of Le Mans edition for $51,400 is a VERY cheap purchase as it’s an opportunity to immediately unlock $200,000 to 400,000 in market value depending on how well you’re connected to certain markets in the M.East and Asia. And one can easily wear it, fly out from London, and sell it in Abu Dhabi. Many (high-end) trinkets are actually a way to move money in case of an emergency, and many people who live in certain geographies will always have (a small) part of their wealth in items that can easily be moved quickly.
Even in old CIA days, agents would usually have one of the cheaper Rolexes (eg a Submariner) on their wrist as a way of easily converting it into cash or a getaway car in bad places if they ever found themselves in a bad situation.
Context, market knowledge, and intent make all the difference.
In fact, I would bet that (as long as the world doesn’t end and capitalism doesn’t die) the market value of this bag (again, the first birkin bag ever made in a world where ‘standard’ Birkins bought at retail are instantaneously worth more the moment you walk out the door) will hold value FAR better than any ‘normal’ investment he could have put the money into.
Additionally, it may not seem like it, but if someone has the liquidity to purchase such a bag in cash, then it means that (1) they already have a lot of other (more conventional) investments, that (2) they are most likely not dumb, and (3) they are plugged into the market for such items and can easily monetize it.
“However, the rationale behind such purchases often has less to do with utility and more to do with perceived value, scarcity, and the ability to prove provenance. When these three elements converge, they create the conditions for substantial future resale value. Which is why you often see serious money investing into things that many would consider ‘silly.’”
My lawyer (absurdly successful guy, makes more money in business than as a lawyer) likes his watches. Different watch every time I see him, heavy on the AP, Rolexes.
I like watches, too, but not as much.
He told me how his grandfather got off a boat from Germany in 1938 with the clothes on his back and his Rolex. He had traded another one to get his papers. With that watch he started a store in Galveston, fed his family, and his dad and brothers went on to be very successful.
Portable, quick, easy. Enough to start over.
Yeah. It’s not $millions, but sometimes you just want something badly enough to cough up a sum that makes some people shake their heads. After I’d gone a year without a cigarette, I treated myself to a $600 rod and reel. That’s a conservative estimate of what I’d have spent on cigs in a year, at the time. Thirty-plus years on, I’m still not smoking, and I’ll go try to gull some trout with a fly, a bit later.
Post-script: Lots of folks that would balk at spending $1K for a handbag have no problem spending it in installments, to feed a nicotine habit. What do you have to show for that?
Hmmmm ...
Based on personal experience ...
"Three tons of metal and plastic" with a Toyota brand on the side is worth a lot more than "three tons of metal and plastic" with a Ford or Chevrolet badge on the side.
This same ease in transport and marketability applies to investment grade diamonds. Had a client dealing in these back in the 1980’s.
OK, I will agree to that... But maybe 25% more not 300% more... Or several million dollars more... :)
A fool and their money soon go a partying.
How the devices made of metal and plastic are designed and built does have some impact on practical value ... ;’}
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