The most expensive handbag ever sold, a 10.1 million dollar Birkin, changed hands in the same year Hermes bags as an asset class went nowhere. Knight Frank had handbags down 0.2 percent across 2025, flat, and a real loss after inflation. That record bought provenance, Jane Birkin's own 1984 prototype, not the Birkin a boutique will sell you.
The easy money is gone. The average resale premium has fallen from 2.2 times retail in 2022 to about 1.4 times late in 2025, and a standard Birkin 30 now trades at roughly what it cost. The gap the flippers lived in has closed. What still moves sits at the extremes: one-owner provenance at the top, worn beater bags at the bottom, the store-fresh bag parked in a closet is the dead middle.
