Since its inception in 1984, the Hermès Birkin bag has been the ultimate status symbol when it comes to luxury accessories. The bag, which was named after actress Jane Birkin, can start at an upwards of $10,000 and can go well into the six-figure range. And even if you have the money to burn, some styles of Birkins require a wait list of up to six years. But there might actually be more to the hoopla surrounding the exclusive arm candy—a new study suggests that a Birkin bag is a smarter investment than the stock market.
Information collected by luxury handbag retailer Baghunter (via Teen Vogue) shows that Birkin bags have increased in value by an average of 14.2 percent each year and by more than 500 percent in the last 35 years. Compared to gold markets, which have fluctuated both positively and negatively, Birkins have only experienced levels of positive fluctuation.
The idea for the bag came during a flight from Paris to London in the early 1980s. Birkin had been seated next to Jean-Louis Dumas, who was Hermès’ chairman at the time. As the legend goes, she complained about not having the right-sized handbag. Soon enough, the Birkin bag was born.
“There’s more that goes into that price than just paying for the Hermès name,” Marissa N. Stempien, fashion editor of JustLuxe.com, said in a 2015 interview with Fortune. “The Birkin is an extraordinarily well made bag. Each one is handmade by trained craftsmen and can take over 18 hours to make, and that number can be doubled if working on exceptional pieces such as those accessorized with diamonds.”
The report concludes that the Birkin is “the safest and least volatile investment market” when competing with stocks and gold commodities. Perhaps the ghastly mutation that was Nene Leakes’s Birkin is the first of its kind to lose value.
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Image via screenshot/HBO.
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