Is the Birkin Dead? Plus How Luxury Brands Treat Their Top Spenders (with Mrs. Dow Jones)

Amy Odell (0:02)

Welcome to Back Row Premium, I'm Amy Odell. This is the second part of my conversation with Haley Sacks, Mrs. Dow Jones. Ahead, we're talking Birkins and VICs.

So I did a story.

Haley Sacks (0:15)

I love your discourse on it.

Amy Odell (0:16)

I think it was a little early in this story, which I keep seeing circulating, about how women were embarrassed to carry their Birkins. And I published the story because I interview VICs, very important clients regularly about their shopping habits and what they think of the collections and what's making them tick. And I kept hearing, my Birkins are sitting on my shelf. I don't feel like carrying my Birkins. It just feels too showy to go out with my Birkin. So I did this story. It caught fire. It struck a nerve with people. And then I saw recently, then the cut did the rich women who say influencers killed the Birkin. Bloomberg did another piece saying, Ermes should make the Birkin harder to get.

What do you think of like? And then there's also the whole sort of previous discourse about how it's an investment. Because if you sell it on the resale market, you get more money than you spent. Of course, that is only true if you don't have to do what they call the pre-spend, which is going to the store and buying a bunch of stuff so that they dine to sell you the Birkin in the first place. A Birkin right now, like the 30 centimeter size and Togo leather, which is like sort of a basic style, that's $15,000.

Weigh in on the Birkin, the state of the Birkin.

Haley Sacks (1:24)

I am happy to weigh in on the state of the Birkin. Thank you for asking.

The state of the Birkin is that the Birkin is in trouble.

The Birkin is in trouble. Influencers have ruined the Birkin. I think there's a bastardization of it, where people are wearing it for all the wrong reasons, and it's become too ubiquitous, which has taken away its luster. I think at the end of the day, it's a pretty bag, and it's a bag that can last forever. And the reason that they made the Birkin in the first place is because an Aramaz executive was sitting next to Jane Birkin on a flight, and she was using a straw tote bag to lug all of her stuff around. And he was like, we could make you a better bag to lug all your stuff around. And then like, if you see pictures from the 90s of how Carolyn Bassett wore it, like these are utilitarian huge bags for women who like need a big tote. And now it's just become this status symbol of wealth. I don't think that it's embarrassing to wear one necessarily, but I do think that the cache is sort of gone. Like I would so much rather see someone wear like a really cool piece of jewelry versus have a Birkin, and that would like make me so much more interested in their personal style.

Amy Odell (2:40)

You think that Birkins are just like too trendy now? Too overexposed?

Haley Sacks (2:45)

I think that the Internet really latched on to them as a status symbol, and it became a really easy way to get views.

Like there are certain tropes that influencers use that always work to get views, right? Oh, day in my life, morning routine, all these little trends that you see repeating over and over, and it's a great way to get content out there. One of those tropes was unbox my Birkin with me.

Amy Odell (3:10)

Yeah.

Haley Sacks (3:10)

And it became a whole thing, and it was very exciting for the audience, but then there became fatigue around seeing it. I also think that with all of the economic instability right now, this peacocking of wealth feels a little bit outdated, and that maybe we're pushing a bit more towards a more quiet luxury, even though I hate that term, because it feels a little goshe with so much economic insecurity, and wages not increasing, but the price of living increasing so much, and we're in this K-shaped economy where the rich keep getting richer, and no one else is, to just see such a flagrant use, sort of waste of wealth. You don't need to spend $15,000 to get a nice bag.

Amy Odell (4:00)

No, you don't, you don't. I think that people should be aware that if they do buy a Birkin thinking that it's an investment, I don't think that it is, because one that assumes that you can buy it without doing the pre-spend, which some people do, I do hear of that happening, but there's no guarantee that you're going to be able to sell that Birkin bag, because you can go on Fashion File, the real real, like any of those resale sites, and you'll see pages and pages of Birkin bags. Why is your bag gonna sell instead of being the one sitting there with all the others?