If you want to own a Hermes Birkin handbag, there are two main reasons that probably aren't in the cards. The first limiting factor is that the Birkin, which has been one of the luxury goods industry's ultimate brass rings for decades, has a starting price of his Must be over $11,000. This is about the same amount you would pay today for a gently used 2013 Honda Accord. Second, even if you had the money, you wouldn't stroll into one of the hundreds of Hermès boutiques around the world and walk out with a bag of your choice instead of a Birkin. is. At the moment, for most types of Hermes bags, these bags are too few in number to satisfy everyone who is willing to pay even a five-digit price.Even if it's in stock, it's probably not available yet you.
To have a chance to win a Birkin, you'll need to play the “Hermes Game,” according to hopefuls who have met online to discuss what they've gleaned about its vague rules.To increase your chances of being offered a Birkin or a similar (and equally popular) Kelly bag from Hermès, consider products that are more readily available in Hermès stores (shoes, housewares, silk scarves, jewelry. there is nothing that is affordable priceTherefore, building such a history will cost at least several thousand dollars. Prospective customers are often told by salespeople, who are said to have broad authority over what to do with popular bags that arrive at their stores, that priority for rare items goes to loyal customers. It is reported that it was damaged. It's anyone's guess how much you would have to buy to demonstrate loyalty compared to your competitors on a particular boutique's customer list. The overwhelming majority of people will be turned down if they ask for a Birkin, even if they pick up a pair of sandals and a few bangles here and there.
You can probably guess how this will turn out. People who have enough money to buy a Birkin on a whim are generally not used to hearing this word. no, and some of them react as if their civil rights are being violated. A lawsuit filed last month in California by two people who recently couldn't afford a Birkin (one of whom already owned at least one bag) claims that they are actually violating federal antitrust laws. It is said that Because Hermès has exclusive rights to the Birkin bag, the complaint alleges, the Hermès game amounts to: tieThis is a potentially anti-competitive practice in which buyers are required to purchase additional unwanted goods as a precondition to receiving the desired product.
Hermès did not respond to a request for comment. So far, legal experts appear skeptical about the suit's merits. Hermès doesn't control a robust second-hand market for its bags, so some people try their luck by walking into off-the-street boutiques and asking politely. But the very existence of this lawsuit offers a glimpse inside the luxury industry's most precarious balancing act. In other words, how do you sell something that is considered rare on a corporate scale?
The most important thing to understand why Hermès bags get so excited is that Hermès bags are actually quite rare compared to products made by the brand's closest competitors. That is to say. Hermès is a huge company, with a market capitalization larger than Nike, but it has largely resisted modern high-capacity manufacturing methods. Instead, they trained a group of traditional leatherworkers and other artisans to work in old-fashioned ways on a large scale. Birkins and Kellys are hand assembled by a single craftsman from start to finish. According to a 2019 article: T, new york timesAccording to Style Magazine, Kelly's process takes 20 to 25 hours of work. Some estimates say it can take up to 40 hours for a Birkin. These practices not only place severe limits on supply that cannot be easily increased quickly, but also allow Hermès and its fans to weave a compelling story about why its prices are among the highest among luxury brands. Also useful. It used to be that way – and it's justified. In fact, Birkins' active resale market almost always sells new bags for more than the retail price, suggesting that the brand is undervalued relative to what customers are paying. The luxury goods industry is built on a hierarchy, and when it comes to handbags, Hermes stands alone at the top among global brands.
European workshops, artisan training academies, centuries-old trade—all of which lead many of Hermès' competitors to believe that just because they're based in France, they must be doing it too. It's about being there. Or in Italy, they sell something very expensive with a very old name. The reality is a little different. Indeed, most of these brands still operate ateliers and workshops where traditional craftsmen develop new designs or manufacture the company's most expensive products. Still, modern luxury is a mass-produced business that has been modernized, scaled up, and made much more efficient by LVMH, the conglomerate that owns brands like Louis Vuitton, Dior, and Fendi. Many of the changes LVMH implemented are now standard operating procedures across its major brands. Scale and efficiency means less manual work and the ability to process more products faster. Large corporations have at their disposal an astonishing amount of physical resources and the capacity to produce vast amounts of goods, many of which are made in ways that are not particularly different from other types of consumer goods and are available in large quantities.
This oversupply is the paradox at the heart of the luxury goods industry. These goods derive cultural and monetary value from their scarcity, but situations in which demand truly exceeds supply are relatively rare. Therefore, luxury brands need to create the illusion of scarcity. This is one of the reasons why limited editions and joint releases have become so popular. Luxury brands impose temporary scarcity on top of industrial affluence. The usual stuff that most people buy anyway is waiting for you wherever you are if you want to pony up.
During the decades of growth that made the executives of these luxury conglomerates some of the world's wealthiest, their wealthy clients became entrenched in a daily routine of flaunting exclusivity. This means that what customers want is almost always available. And even though sales of the very same products are on the rise around the world, their availability remains special and alluring because those products are theoretically unavailable to invisible strangers. It feels like. The reason many people aren't crazy about buying luxury goods is because they all love great craftsmanship, and they don't necessarily want everyone to know exactly how much money they have. It is also from. At least in part, it's because it's a thrill to arrive at a velvet rope and be taken inside, and modern luxury companies are selling velvet ropes for their paying customers as much as humanly possible. I found a way to maintain that feeling while pulling up.
When a customer accustomed to this kind of ease of acquisition encounters real material deprivation that is not exempt, such as when they can spend $15,000 but cannot get a Birkin, the effects are flammable. It may become. The paradoxes of the market that brands are cleverly trying to keep out of sight and out of mind become a little too obvious. Luxury goods are not infinitely scalable, at least not in a real sense. Significant investments of resources, materials, skills, labor, and time are inherent to enterprises, and their limitations cannot be completely alleviated.
But the luxury goods industry has changed since the days when handicrafts dominated a much smaller and less efficient market. The term now refers not to an object's superior material properties, but to its price, the trade-offs made to transform its business into a phenomenally profitable global behemoth. Most of these items are not rare. It's just expensive, and if you think about it, it's obvious. This is why Hermès turns off many wealthy customers. That velvet rope can't always be broken with just one swipe of his credit card.
