Are Birkins Better Investments Than the Stock Market? The Truth About Luxury Investing with Dana Auslander

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actually be? Her bag it would probably be about 35 to 40% for our fondant least.

“Headlines like these about the Burkin feeding the S&P 500 have gone viral, but are they real?”

Today I'm talking to Donna Oslander who spent 20 years in investment management and now she's onto her most fun project yet by far building Lexus. It's an alternative investment firm with a dedicated Burkin fund. So she tells me the truth about luxury investments. Our message known as a Babylon Good. A Babylon Good is this economic philosophy where when the price goes up demand goes up, how to invest in a Burkin without actually buying one.

The only way to be able to invest in Burkins and Calis in my opinion is to a fund through a

it about a million. $700,000 and I just wanted it to hit a million because then it would just

defy the investment thesis and it just kept going and going and going and then finally it ended up with the Japanese reseller at $10.8 million. I'm Nicole Lappin. The only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for some money right now. Donna Oslander, welcome to Money Rehab. Thanks for having me. So excited to answer the age old question. I don't know if it's age old question. The Instagram old question or

TikTok old question are Burkins better investments than the stock market? Well, our mass trades

“add 43x of its valuation. So it's very expensive stock. The only way to be able to invest in”

Burkins and Calis in my opinion is to a fund through a diversified portfolio of bags. If you want to buy one for your personal collection, sure you'll be able to sell it for a premium. If you want, but you're not going to get probably depending on what the condition of it is, you're probably not going to get what you hope for. And that's probably because the resell platforms take a big cut from the consignment fee as we know. Oh, that's for sure.

I actually have been there. I sold a Burkin on the real real. Yeah. And it did have somewhat of a return, but the fee is where you actually break even or lose some money from retail. Absolutely. And it's, it's actually really, in my opinion, distorted the whole concept of it being an investment if you're single-handedly trying to just sell your Burkin. Yeah, because what you're seeing online are all these charts that are like gross defeats. Yeah, huge, like up into the right,

you know, but what would the average annual return actually be gross? And then minus some of the platforms. So per bag, it would probably be about 35 to 40% for our fondant least per bag gross. And then net, it's around 25, 27% because of all the fees. And we've negotiated those fees down to barely anything. So for the average consumer, it would probably be, I mean, it's still a really great return. So it's still, it would be somewhere probably I would say between 18 and 20%.

Over its lifetime. Over its, it's sale. Yeah, it's lifetime. And if it's not like going to return something on an annual basis, because it's just, it's like buying a real estate building, right? So it's just, it's just, if you buy a bag and then you want to sell it, you're ROI on it, probably will be about 18 to 20% on the consumer side. And typically, how long is somebody going to hold that bag then? 10 years? Five years? It depends. I mean, it's really depends on per,

like, for us for the fund, it really, we want to sell it within 60 days of acquiring it, because for us, the sales velocity matters. We set up the fund not to really rely on the appreciation of a bargain, but on the spread between the primary market and the secondary market. And so

“that's how I'm English. Okay. So if somebody doesn't know how much is a bargain.”

A bargain is 14, look, a 30 is $14,900. So $15,000. When I bought my first bargain, it was

4800 euro in 2005. And so our messes increased the price on it, like substantially. However, our mess, Birkins and Kelly is our known as quota bags. And the reason they're called quota bags is because they are not publicized, they are not marketed. They are not offered to people. You can't just walk into a store and buy a Birkin or Kelly. You have to have a spend history of about 25 to 50,000 a year on other or mess goods to be able to even be eligible for a Birkin or Kelly.

And then at that point, you can maybe get a leather appointment. And even if you get the leather appointment, you're probably not going to get the bag that you want. It really depends on what your sales associate wants you to have. It's, it's crazy town. I mean, these are very, very, very high class rich people problems to have to go buy a sandal or an accessory or a something to make nice nice with the salespeople to maybe have the luxury or the privilege of dropping 15 grand

on a bag that's maybe an ugly color. It's manufactured scarcity, but it works. And the hype around

“it has only grown. I think the secondary market and really the invention of the real real back in 2012”

was when all of it became sort of digital. You had Amazon and eBay, obviously get into a

retail auction well before, but it wasn't for luxury goods. And the real real was really the first

time that luxury secondary market picked up. And since then, you've had rebag. You've had, what goes around comes around. You've had all these resellers hyping up our mess without any kind of

the hype has just gotten crazy and you have TikTok and Instagram. You have solo printers who just have fan accounts and are selling bags all day long. So the ecosystem around it has made the demand skyrocket. I mean, I am partial. My best friend did start crazy. So we have to put them in the mix. Sorry. There's too many to count. Okay. So then let's follow the life cycle of that bag. If you're doing it just to be an investor in which case you probably should leave it in the

box, right? Like, don't take it around. Don't dirty it up. But 60 days to get for us,

“double digit return is insane. Well, for us, that's what's important. And, you know, because”

we are fond. So it's diversified, like portfolio of bags, just like you wouldn't invest in a real estate fund. And the idea is to return 2x of M.O.I.C. is multiple uninvested capital within the

liquidity period. So the first fund that we launched was 15 months. And we've already sold

25 out of 50 bags. And we're probably going to return one and a half x. But fun too that we launched in last November when we got all the viral news media stuff, that is 30 months. And we'll definitely be able to return 2x of M.O.I.C. And you're not going to get those kinds of returns in any other asset class right now. Even AI is questionable. I've seen you do a lot of shows on AI. And that's all anyone's talking about in those valuations or through the roof. This is a more modest,

but much, much more capacity constrained strategy. Yeah, typically, and we've done videos

“breaking down how long it takes to double your money based on the investment return. So typically”

in the stock market, it will take you about 7 years. If you're thinking of a 10% year over your rate of return, it will take you about 7 years to double your money. So you're saying it will take you 30 months or two and a half years. Yeah, okay. Because again, these are Brookings and Kelly's and you know, there's a whole portfolio construction philosophy that goes into it. We're trying to buy new in the box bags, which to your point have plastics still on them, receipts, orange boxes,

and those are trading at a premium. And we also have pre-owned, which is what the Gen Z years, then the millennials are buying pre-loved pre-owned, the Peter bags that are have been made so popular by the Olsen Twins that I personally also like. But for many, many, many people, especially millennials in Gen Z, the only entry point into a Burk in our Kelly is going to be the secondary market. They're not going to be able to walk into our mess and create the spending

limit. So that's really for boomers and the Gen Xers for right now in some lucky millennials. But the secondary market is really, really become the place for the growth to explode. So all of our activities, the funs activities are happening in the secondary market. Going back to what's become popularized is buying the actual bag. And we saw Jane Burkin, like the muse of the Burkin itself, her bag sold for $10.1 million in the room.

In the room where it happened, it was crazy. Tell me in a minute.

“10 minute bidding, 10 minute bidding more, and it was, where did it start?”

Saying, it started. I want to say it about a million, $700,000. And I just wanted it to hit a million because then it would justify the investments he says. And it just kept going and going and

going and then finally it ended up with the Japanese reseller at 10.8 million.

Oh, 10.8? Damn. It does a bag like that. Also, experience the annual rate of return. Well, that's a provenance bag. So that's only, you don't Jane Burkin only have four bags, four burkins or five burkins. The other one, a second one was sold off by Sadabiz also an Abu Dhabi for three million in December of last year. I was there for that too. And then the other two are with her daughters and we'll probably get passed down to her grandkids. But yeah, she was the muse

of the Burkin bags, you know. And it's created a complete frenzy around around that. It was the second highest achieving fashion item in auction. The first one being Dorothees, Red Slippers. Oh, wow. That was 30 million. Wow. What a life you live, John.

It's like I'm having some of your intern. Yeah. Sounds amazing. So is that the most expensive

Burkin ever? Yes. Yes. That's the, that's a biggest sale for any handbag ever. Okay. So for anyone who's thinking like I'm turning off this episode because there's no way that I can drop all this money on a Burkin. We're going to talk about how to invest in the Burkin without actually buying it itself. But I want to step back and talk about this holy Trinity, the air maze, the Chanel, because it's not just the Burkin or the Cali as you mentioned, that can yield a return that sometimes

rivals the stock market. Right. So in my opinion, it is just the quarterbags because Chanel for instance, and I love Chanel. Chanel has raised its prices by almost 90% since COVID and it's

right now with Matthew Blasey, but it's shoes. It's their shoes. I don't even know who that is.

“It was an creative director. Okay. The only, in our opinion, the only investment”

great handbag is the Burkin or the Cali. But hold on. If they raise their prices 90% that would be an appreciation. So if you bought it before that price hike, you wouldn't have made that if you sold it. Yeah. But then the secondary market premiums haven't been keeping up with that. So our mess is known as a Babylon good. A Babylon good is the economic philosophy where when the price goes up demand goes up and our mess, protect and Ferrari are kind of the only three luxury goods

that fall in that category. Chanel doesn't. If you went and you wanted to buy it flat back from Chanel and you paid $8,500 for it, and then you wanted to give it to the real real, you're likely going to get the listing price will probably be less than the price you bought it for. Right. So you touched on a really important point that the Burkins and maybe the Cali's, I would say, but the air may is bags and the petick, petick, I agree.

It's a war. I know what it is, but I can never say it because I don't have one.

And the Ferrari's rate like these really high high luxury brands rely on supply and demand. So

“like really little supply, big demand. And then that's why you can resell them for so much higher”

because they're so much harder to get in the first place. Yeah. And you know the whole concept of a Babylon good is when you raise the price, there's this psychology that the consumer wants to even more. And so demand sky rockets. So fine. The Chanel flat bag that the internet says is also an investment grade bag is not. Of course not. In my opinion, it's not. Okay. So if somebody's buying a Burkin, they're like, okay, I get to hold the Burkin. I get to touch the Burkins,

maybe smell the Burkin. I don't know what you do though, Burkin. Instead of buying Nvidia shares, let's say. And that's a big draw because they'll actually have a tangible good. Do you have to go into this purchase thinking, like, I'm going to use this as a consumer or I'm going to use this as an investment. I think you'll have to go into it thinking that you're going to use it as a consumer. That would be my mentality.

I would never, I've seven Burkins. I would never sell any of them. I am attached to them.

They mean that they represent certain milestones in my career. I got my very first one with a blackstone bonus that I received in 2005. I took all the way to Paris to get it. So I would just say if you buy one, don't have a view to flip it. Also, or as will not be happy if you do do that. We'll don't tell them. Yeah. Where? They'll find out. I don't know. So Donna, we had Kevin O'Larry on the show. And he said the same thing about his Libubu. And I was like

Kevin, five million dollars for your Libubu. $10 million for your Libubu. If I said to you, I'm going to give you five million dollars. You wouldn't sell any of your Burkins. I mean, I don't know. I don't think that would never happen. But the you know, they mean something to me. I mean that every single one of them has a story. And you know, I love walking around with them. I love carrying them. For me, they really, you know, I love Carolyn Bessette.

And, you know, love story is happening right now on Fox. And I remember when I was 28 or 29 in a VP, I really wanted to have the exact same burkin that she did that you walked around the streets with. And so I bought it. And I call, at that point, you could call her Mas and say, I want to get this bag. How long is it going to take? And they say two months, three months, come to the store and pick it up. And then they call you and you go and get it. It's completely different now. You can't get it anymore.

“So, so that's really what's changed. You can't bribe the salespeople. No. Have people tried?”

They don't get commission. No. They don't get commission on the on the on the quote of bags. So, what are their salaries? They must be high. They're high. And I think they do get commissions on like homeware and and other enclose and shoes and belts. But I don't think they don't definitely don't get commission on the quote of bags. So, there's no incentive. There's no way to game this. They also, like, you don't even know how many burkins and Kelly's will end up at

each or messed or. So, it's if they do end up there, it's usually up to the salespeople to decide who gets them. And it's a whole ceremony. And I'm sure you see this candle. I'm sure you see, I mean,

I'm not doing. I've never done it. But I mean, it's, it's, you see, in TikTok, like there's on

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If you're not going to see the videos that are going around of how fast they do it and some of these live shopping shows, I'm assuming a burden is not going to go in that. We have our first live selling event next tomorrow with eBay. They are putting all of their eggs in the luxury basket now and some more agents, who isn't traders, is the host of the live selling event and our bags. All the bags from the portfolio will be there. Not all of them, but a select.

And they're dropping a broken every hour on the hour for a dollar. And as a start-up point. Sure. And don't worry, we've handled the economics behind the scene, but we are, it's crazy to see how many people tune into those and buy them. And how much celebrity has played into this? What's the lowest an auction or a secondary site has had a broken? I mean, I think they usually do go, unless they're really beat up, they'll go for a little bit of

above retail. So they'll, you know, we'll probably end up somewhere between 10 to 15 percent premium.

On the live selling for a pre-owned bag, new in the box commands a very high premium. Because it's brand new. And people really, really want the brand new bags.

“I think it's also important to note that COVID created a real distortion in the market.”

People really really started buying Burkins and Kelly's unmask during COVID during the lockdowns. So the prices in the secondary market skyrocketed. They've come down a little bit. There's been a correction. But Sotheby says that, you know, it's usually within two acts of the price of the Burkins. So a brand new Burkin with the orange box received everything. One for two times, it's priced at the height of the COVID pandemic. And now it's gone down to about 1.8, 1.9.

Really? That's crazy. I was on the other side of that trade. I was so scared during that time.

Yeah. I kind of got rid of this by now. But I guess I didn't participate in that massive upside. That's odd to me because the luxury market when the stock market goes down or we're seeing huge global events like that. You would think that people aren't buying luxury goods. It's the case shaped economy really a play here. I mean, you've got the very, very wealthy, just getting wealthier and wealthier. And what they're spending their money on is mostly cars and

watches and Burkins and experiences and women. I mean, this is, it's the one luxury good that women really care about. And every guy who's making a lot of money in the case shaped recovery has a wife or a mom or a sister or someone who really wants a Burkin. The counterfits are so good. So good. How is that affected the market? It's really, really going to be a problem. I think there's a couple of AI focused apps that tell you whether or not a Burkin is often dip one is

called entropy. But it's the fakes have gotten so good. It's a non-agosible for us. We have three points of clearing the authenticity of the bags. But the manufacturing in China and in Asia

“has become really, really good. And you have to be very, very careful with what you buy. In my”

opinion, I, again, all of my seven Burkins have been bought directly from them as, so I know they're real. But I think it's really scary. What's going on out there? Well, even there is an article about the real real that there are some fakes that got through the system. It's impossible for something not to get through the system. They're that good. And there's so much volume going through. There's, there's so much volume of Burkins and Kelly's running around all over the world right now

from Asia to the Middle East to Europe to hear this is still the biggest market here in the US. But the K-shaped economy, economic recovery has only made demand accelerate. Explain the K-shaped economy for some of you who's trying to visualize. Well, the K-shaped a lot of letters. The K-shaped economy, the one that I'm thinking of is the, is that the ultra-high net worth of family office money is just multiplying and becoming even wealthier. Whereas the average consumer is not spending

anymore. And so it's taken out the aspirational consumer. So people aren't really buying unless they absolutely have to. They don't have a lot of money still to spend. However, the ultra-high net worth in the people who are making a lot of money on the top side of the K. This is what they're mostly buying.

of a fake? The stitching, for me it's the stitching. I can really tell if I see something off on the, on that there's blind stamps that are met as puts on the bags that are. If they're, if they're putting a wrong place, somebody that will know is, we'll really understand authenticity. We'll be able to tell right away. Sometimes you can smell a fake. You can do all sorts of things to be able to detect them. Again, I'm not an authenticator. However, we do have them

on staff and with the partners that we work with. But they're just getting better and better. What's a blind stamp? It's like an invisible stamp? Yeah. I also think that there's going to be an interesting digital passport situation happening in Europe with our mass. Chanel is already implemented

“at where, I think, by 28 or 29, every single consumer good that's coming out of Europe will”

need a digital passport to prove authenticity. What does that mean? Like a token? That's a good question. I mean, I, you know, yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's invasive. Is it non-invasive? Chanel has a card that goes with the bag. But our mass so far hasn't done or said anything about this. So we'll see what, what they're going to have to do. They're going to have to comply somehow. But I don't really know how they're going to do it. I mean, when liberation day came around, they were a bunch of videos

from China in particular saying that they make the burdens and they would sell directly to a consumer. Did you see that? Yeah, but all, all the organs and calories are made in France. Nothing is made out of France. And so all, because it looks so believable, these people that were like, they tell you that it's made in France, but really it's made here. No way. No, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no. I mean,

“I think I would recommend that you listen to the acquired podcast on our mass. It's a four-hour”

deep dive. It's fascinating. What our mass has done and how they continue to grow. They've been around for 188 years. And this manufacturer's scarcity around those two bags, styles has been

unbelievable. And if you buy a book in or, you know, buy a second hand book, and how liquid is

the next market, whether it's second or third, it's pretty liquid. For a book in our Kelly, especially in the desired styles and colors, it's pretty liquid. I would say it depends on sort of what's going on in the market in the secondary market, but we sell probably about three to four bags a week. So, you know, technically a bag should sell every 48 hours. So, it's relatively liquid. However, there's a lot of friction if you're a consumer trying to sell a bag as we just talked about.

That makes sense. And where would the best options be if you're trying to go to a second

“dairy market and not get screwed on the fuse? It's tough. I mean, there's so many resellers and they'll”

all give you some some kind of a deal. I would say don't settle for anything under 15 percent if you're for a Birkin or Kelly. In other words, don't pay more than 15 percent commission on it. But what I found out is that that commission is negotiable too. Yeah, 100 percent.

But they usually won't go below 15 percent. We get like, even with the first institutional

check here and we basically get 10 to 5 to 10 percent, it's hard. It's hard to get the commissions because it's how these guys are making no money that we sell platform. Well, so let's dig more into Lexus and how to get exposure into the asset class without actually buying the Birkin itself. Can you explain how and why you started the first ever air maze dedicated investment fund? Sure. So, I'm a long time private equity and hedge fund executive. I'm a lawyer. I did fund formation

for years at Shilty Roth. I worked with Citadel and Lone Pine and those guys when they came out. And then I headed product development and structuring at Blackstone in the hedge fund group for close to decade. And afterwards, I laughed and worked with a bunch of credit guys. But in the in the time that I did that, I started collecting jewelry. And I really loved the Los Angeles jewelry

designers. I need a co-specifically. I was one of her first clients and I always wanted jewelry at least

to get sort of the treatment of an investment versus just a consumer good that people wore around. But I left it when back to hedge funds. And during COVID during the pandemic, someone set me a perspective for fractional investment in art in a in a osciat. And I was like, I can do a way better job structuring. That's then they have. And I've been doing this my entire life. So I started Luxus in 2021. It was when venture financing was flowing in crypto and NFTs and Metavers were all the rage.

But it was never really comfortable for me. I really like the world of accredited investors and qualified purchase. I liked the institutionality of it all. So I always tried to create those

Christie's Ventures. They are sort of the number one auction house in my opinion. And it was

“really, really great having them on board. And I said, why don't we create investment opportunities”

fractional investments at first. But then we quickly pivoted to buy side, to fund investments. And we started with Johnson jewelry, fancy color diamonds at first. And then we found really

great product market fit with family offices. And my thesis was always at the investor and the

collector, the same person. So you've got to treat them the same way. And I had spent so many years doing investor relations and worked with investors. But now I was also able to see them from the collecting side too. So you've got many hedge fund managers who have art collectors, a car collectors, a wine collectors. And I said, wouldn't it be cool if we figured out a way to kind of combine this? And we started doing experience around all of, because you can really experience luxury, right?

You can drink the wine, you can drive the car, you can touch the brick and technically. And that category just kind of skyrocketed. I ended up wanting to do our mass when Trump was elected literally the week of Stono Vember 2024. And I had just listened to the acquired podcast, which was brilliant. And I'd known our mass for 20 years. And I was like, you know what?

“In this kind of an economy, the only thing that's going to do well is gold. And I'm in the”

world of luxury. We're venture backed. We have crises. We have a lot of hedge fund money. So what's going to be the one asset class that I think is going to do well in this economy? Our mass. So put our

head down. Did a lot of R&D. And we launched a proof of concept product for a million dollars

in May of 2025. So last year. And we worked with a reseller in the space. And we bought an immediately sold whole bunch of Burkins and Kelly's at the time it was just new in the box. And I know you're going to ask, how do you source? And I'll tell you that. But I already store them. Where are these? They're all in New York. They're all in the showrooms of the resellers. So they're all insurance, temperature controlled, safe, and vaults. And it was a huge hit. I mean,

people really loved it. We started doing experiences in the Hampton, in the city, educating women about financial literacy. But also explaining the history of our mass. Because a lot of people just don't know it. And because the company's been really, really opaque. It's publicly listed. But it's very, very, very difficult to get any information out of them. The stock is very expensive. And but they're running great numbers. I mean, they were up 10 percent in 2025. And it's just,

it's an incredible story. So we launched the second chair class, if you will, for $2 million.

And I did a little bit of press just so that we could get the bag sold. Because for us, the thesis is the spread. It's not necessarily the appreciation in the secondary market. It's with Milo, we sell high. So how are we able to get these bags at really great prices? Market them, figure out who the right exit channels are. And then exit the bags and immediately buy new bags. And then continue the turnover period, just like stocks or commodities or anything else.

So that was the story of the fund. And so we launched a $2 million share class last year for a total of $3 million. It's up on deployed capital. Both funds are up 26 percent net, 35 percent gross. And we're launching fund three in the summer for 10 million. So these are tiny dollars to you. But in this kind of a strategy, it's a lot of money. That's not tiny dollars

“to me. And those are many dollars to me. But then how does somebody invest in that fund?”

Just like you would invest in any private fund, we would administer it or you get your sudden subscription document. It's open only to accredited investors. And it's a high minimum investment. It's a hundred thousand dollars that we're probably going to raise to 250 because there's so much demand. So it's been great to kind of see demand for something other than a data center. But you know, here we are. And then you know, what we do is we buy the bags and then we

immediately list them on celebrities on the real real on first dibs eBay and they sell. So you don't actually ever take possession of them. You say they're at the secondary retailer. So you know, we do take, I mean they're owned. They're portfolio. So we own them. They get bought from all over the world. But really the first couple of where the first two funds were in the US only. They're chipped to New York. They are authenticated. They're inspected.

They're catalogued. They're all being photographed. They're the star of the show. And then they're uploaded to all the different marketplaces and Shopify has made life a lot easier for the resell world. And so they are cross listed on a bunch of platforms. And they also make their way to a bunch of events. They'll be here at milk in at least 10 or 15 of the bags will be.

by renting them out to the movie studios around here. And be careful. No, no, those are probably the

pre-owned. The pre-owned. Oh, I see. So being an accredited investor just basically means you

self-attest that you have a certain amount of money, which is what? Two hundred thousand person

“and I think 300, a couple. And basically, it's a self-attestation. You should tell the truth.”

And it shows that you are comfortable with us level of risk and that you would be okay if you lost all of this money, especially. Yes. And we also screen people. I mean, this is still in the emerging asset class. So we want to make sure that everybody that's invested is really aware of the risks. And there are many. I mean, this is technically a liquid, the authenticity risk is real. You have counterparty or a scooter or a seller is believed or not. So we want to make sure that

everyone who is invested is really part of the LP community that enjoys, you know, both making money and spending it and also experiencing it. So regular people can't invest or have you allowed like an SPV, which is a so far. No, so far, it's been family offices in ultra-high in it. Worth. Let the people in. Donna? Yeah. Let the ladies in. We're still rational. We're small. One day. Yeah,

“one day. But, you know, a year ago, a lot of people started arguing that investing in Tesla was”

like a proxy. You got exposure to Elon's private companies, you know, whether it was the boring company or neural link or, you know, X-A-I at the time is buying a Birkin like a proxy for investing in air maze or now, because our mess does trade at a 40. Like, well, now it's 43X premiums with expensive buying stock. The stock, it's listed on your next. I want to say that it's but 1800 Europe share, but it's, it's down 20% this year. So if you do want to invest in

our mess, the company, this is a good time to buy. It's on sale. I mean, the equity. Right. That could be stuck. Yeah, because of the war. How would your fund relate to the price of the stock, if at all? It's not really correlated, because ours, a physical assets, and we actively manage them, just like a real estate manager would actively manage a real estate fund. We, you know, buy very intentionally. The styles and the colors and the conditions that I know we know people want.

We use data to verify all of this. We're going to be actually the first fund to work with night

frank on the handbag, the luxury handbag report that's coming out April 23rd. Yeah. So we're creating a whole market at brand new asset class. We're defining it. You know, so when we buy the bags, first of all, the price has to be right. The styles have to be right. The conditions have to be right. And then we also carefully manage the exit. So is this the right bag for Sotheby's and their clients? Is it the right bag for eBay and the live selling stream? Is it right for the, we just

partnered with Julian's auctions on Gwyneth Paltrose auction? And we source the same bag that Margotana Boundhad. So, you know, trying to create narratives and storytelling around an investment, but also a consumer good, the same time. I mean, investment majority of people aren't able to buy ever going to outright. You talked about this idea of fractionalizing art, and that's become, you know, of course, very popular over the years. If somebody wants to go in together as the trend has happened

more aggressively with real estate and the real estate market like going in with friends to co-buy a

“Birkin, would you suggest? Yeah, I mean, you could. It's, how would you get it though? And what price?”

That's the issue. You're not going to get it from our mess. So, you know, you would have to go to the secondary market, pay their 35% premium or whatever they want to impose on it, and then hope that you can resell it for a price even higher than that. So it's just margin upon margin upon margin. So, you really have to be careful because the acquisition price really matters here, and that's

really how you're going to make the money. And for us, it's the most important part of the thesis

is at what price do we get in and how can we secure it at scale? So, how do you buy low or is this? Well, with the first institutional check, so we have to tap into a whole lot of private network dealers on what's the app that have been doing this for the last 10, 15 years. We don't, we don't, yeah, we don't do it directly, but we work with the resellers. We have partners, both in the acquisition side and the disposition side, who have been cultivating buying networks for

years now. I mean, literally for 10, 15 years and are able to buy the bags, either new in the box or pre-owned or whatever, and we then buy them, we store them, we photograph them, and then we sell them right away. So, this is not a like, try it at home. No, situation. No, no, no, no, a lot of

by the end of the year. Every single bag and every purchase we make has to have an intentional exit. It's a lot. If you're someone who's a complete newbie investor, can you talk more to the idea that luxury you mentioned it briefly earlier is uncorrelated with the stock market. So, we see and you mentioned the war right now and the stock market is in the pooper, but luxury,

“not necessarily Airman's stock, but the private market is still holding. Why does that happen?”

Well, I mentioned the K-shaped economy before, but luxury also is, first of all, the experience

economies take it off big time, and the luxury companies have leaned into it quite in that's paid off. But luxury is also coming off of a little bit of a slump for them. LVMA just has been under a lot of pressure caring, which is the owner of Gucci's been under a lot of pressure, and I think because during COVID there was this push to democratize and to have these entry points in luxury for the people that weren't more aspirational than the super super ultra high-end worth,

and that's backfired. You can't be all things to all people. The luxury companies that have done really well at Wishmont, which is the owner of Cartier in Vancouver, Prada, which now is Versace,

but also Miumu, and Miumu's done really, really well, and our measure measure actually has done

really well compared to LVMA's and caring, but they're all starting to, they're all bet big on the Middle East. The built stores there, the Dubai mall, as I'm sure you know, is one of the largest malls, if not the largest mall in the world, and there's no tourism there right now, and so there are big growth plans, and we listen to all the quarterly calls that happen right before the war started, the biggest plans were to expand in Dubai, in Abu Dhabi, in Riyadh, and all that's been scrapped,

so the equities have taken quite a hit. So it's uncorrelated to the overall stock market. Yeah, I mean, again, it depends the single brand, the single name brands like Brunello, Kuchanelli, Prada, Rishmont, even though that's really three brands, have done really well because they've just focused only on the ultra-high net worth. It's the luxury equity names that have tried to become aspirational, like LVMA, Louis Vuitton, and caring that have taken more of a hit. Kuch, Kuch.

Well, Kuch, yeah, if you're getting the bag, it's not an actual hedge in the intrinsic value, right? Like, you have a beautiful Birken on the floor, right? A red Birken, like the value of that material, it is not manufactured electricity. Yeah, it's not, like unless it's gold made out of gold. Yeah, but it's not, yeah, it's not, it's not a precious metal. It's not a scarce diamond.

“It's just manufactured scarcity, but it is a Birken or a Kelly. That's why we for the funds,”

we had to really narrowly define the category. That's important. You can't really go outside this narrow definition because it just applies to these two styles, the Birken and the Kelly. Can't even get an Evelyn and Evelyn is another bag, a constant. It's another MS bags. Those are not court of bags. And so this is manufactured scarcity. It's completely imposed by our MS via its store policy, and that's really what we're leveraging. And you don't think

that manufacture its scarcity ever goes away. I don't think it'll go away in the next, I would say, five to ten years. And at that point, we'll already expand because what we're doing right now is was still a well, well, well tech company. So what we're doing is we're just doing our

MS first and then we're going to move over to watches to wines and spirits to jewelry. So we're

just testing these pieces out now and then moving on to other categories in a horizontal integration. I don't think our MS is going to change. It hasn't changed. It's policy in 47 years since Birken was created. I don't think it's going to change it anytime soon. So Gen Z, Gen Alpha, typically they don't love it. The labels as much, but what you see on social media is that they love a Birken. They still love a Birken. But their entry point isn't our

MS anymore. It's, it's the real real. It's eBay. It's for steps. It's that's not their entry point.

“And I think that's going to be a really interesting thing to watch because the people who are”

the MS clients are the Gen X and the boomers. And I'm not sure how well cultivated the Gen Z in the millennials and the Gen Alpha community is. Well, there's a big wealth transfer on the horizon. There's a lot of Gen Z only getting a bunch of bags now. So can we, if you're going to continue to go horizontal across the luxury, well, you just rate these asset classes for us. So watches, one to ten, good investment. The crypto market into fear to watch is because so many

crypto bro's bot watches and then when FTX happened and they lost all their money, they sold them.

But I still think it's a, if you narrowly define the category, it's a good investment. It just depends what watch. So a seven, seven. Yeah. Art. Again, it post-war contemporary is like a nine. And then I would say other genres are more a five or four. The art market's coming out of a,

a little bit of a slump now also. But it's, it's always blue chip art. So it was going to do really,

really well. Wine. Wine's in like a two or three because Gen Alpha, Gen Z, Gen Alpha, and the younger folks aren't drinking. So the sales have gotten very, very, very, very tepid. And there's a lot of inventory sitting out there. I love my Chateau Margot personally. So to me, it's going to be a passion project that I'm definitely, definitely doing a wine fund. But you also introduction of GLP drugs also has made people not want to drink as much. So the beverage industry has been hit.

“And I think that's one of the reasons you see LVMH's stock struggle is because so much of it is”

spirits and beverages. Yeah. Wine has always been a weird one. Yeah. When I was at CMBC, I did,

I had an alternative investment series. And the wine one was, there's a binfolio, as you know, like in decks of tracks that I have not looked at the binfolio, but we haven't really taken a big hit. Like it's, yeah, I'm sure it's taken on big hit. So anyway, we'll see. Okay, what about jewelry, which is where I love. I mean, it's my, it's my passion. I think vintage jewelry from the 30s on the 40s, Cartier, Bulgaria, Vancouver, will always do really, really well. Collectors love that

“and they flock to it. I think new or jewelry has been also in a weird situation because of the”

price of gold and silver and the volatility within that. So when you're trying to make a piece of jewelry and you're a need a co or a new worth or Jessica McCormack one day, it'll be too expensive to create a piece in the next day. The price will like plum it. So I think the volatility of precious metals is really kind of rock that world, but it's still 9 out of 10 for me. So if somebody is thinking about investing in the stock market or getting a Berkin. I still think that it depends

when in the stock market, but I still think getting a Berkin, if you can get it from a mess,

at retail, you always get the Berkin. How do you win a relationship with your significant other

over this? What do you say from an investment standpoint? Give the ladies a tip. Yeah, give the, I mean, listen, it's, it's something that you're going to have forever and ever. You will pass it down to your kids, your grandkids, the same styles that were selling out so well, 20 years ago, when I got my Carolyn Bassat one, are the ones selling out the best now, so it never goes out of style. It's not trendy. It's institutional. The other brands are, I'm a Celine girl personally,

also I love Celine, but I do think that our mess is just timeless. It's just, it's always going to be there. Donna, we end our episode by asking all of our guests for a tip that listeners can take straight to the bank. What would you leave them with? The financial literacy for women peace.

“I think it's so important for women to own their story and to own the narrative and to be able”

to invest in equities and credit and alternatives and really figure out how to navigate the financial advisory relationships and their asset managers. And I've been talking to so many women who are doing this and to me, it's become sort of a passion project and really important. So seek out all financial literacy programs for women and become the master of your own story. That's right. By your own broken. I need to convince somebody. Yeah.