This story is part of Glossy’s week-long look at the state of luxury, exploring what consumers and brands are deeming worthy of investment in 2024. To see all the stories in the series, click here.
There are many types of fashion consumers, like the trend-oriented buyers who refresh their wardrobes each season and the thrifters who won’t wear anything made in the last decade. And then there are the collectors.
The combination of luxury’s ever-increasing prices, the rise of luxury resale platforms like Fashionphile and The RealReal, and fashion’s streetwear-influenced focus on limited-edition drops have all come together to create a type of consumer for whom luxury goods are investment assets. These customers amass large collections of exclusive, high-priced items like watches and handbags with an eye on their resale value, treating their collections like portfolios.
Glossy spoke with three collectors of high-end luxury goods about their favorite pieces, what drives them to collect them and how changes in the industry’s business model are also changing how they think about their collections.
Sasha Simon
Sasha Simon, an influencer with over 1 million followers under the handle @lolariostyle, first started collecting luxury handbags over 30 years ago. Her first was a 14-karat gold classic jumbo Chanel bag, which she has to this day.
While her collection used to number in the hundreds, many of which were trendy bags from the ‘90s that Simon said didn’t hold their value well over time, she has since pared things down to just 50 bags. The collection ranges from bags she uses every day, like her brown suede Margaux bag from The Row, which she said is right on trend and gets used constantly, to bags reserved for special occasions like an Hermès Kelly 32 bag.
Simon said she has noticed an increased demand for rare older bags, many of which she has sold through Fashionphile, which gave her the best prices.
“I invested in bags that would hold their value without even really trying,” Simon said. “I was just collecting bags for fun, but now the Chanel bag I paid $1,500 for 30 years ago is worth $8,000.”
Most of Simon’s bags, which she stores in their dustbags in her home, were bought new. She told Glossy that, because of the rapid speed of the modern trend cycle, when styles come in and out of fashion in a matter of months, consumers would be smart to view their closets as liquid.
“Every year, there are new bags you want to purchase. But by the time you get them, they’re on their way out,” she said. “It makes sense to think about the resale value of the bags when you buy them.”
But there is a barrier to a collector’s ambitions: Some brands make selling you the product a process. Hermès, notably, has come under fire for its highly selective policy of choosing who can purchase a Birkin bag, often requiring people to first buy multiple other products over months or years before they’re granted permission to purchase a Birkin.
Even someone as experienced with this world as Simon has experienced it.
“I bought a bunch of belts, scarves and perfume from Hermès hoping to get a bag,” she said. “During Covid, I went into an Hermès store and I was looking at a Birkin. I told the [store associate] there that I liked the bag and he responded right away, ‘You’ll never get one.’ It left a bad taste in my mouth.”
NYCWatchGuy
The man known as @NYCWatchGuy boasts one of the most expansive and expensive collections of ultra-high-end independent designer watches in the business. His Instagram account has more than 50,000 followers, and in his day job, he’s an investment financier who has invested in numerous watch companies like Bezel. He spoke with Glossy on the condition of anonymity for security reasons, since his collection is worth around $3 million to $5 million.
The watch-collecting bug started for him more than a decade ago when, as the founder of a new startup, he felt he should have a professional watch. Knowing little about the industry, he settled on a Zenith El Primero. His interest and expertise grew, and within a few years, he had over 100 watches in his collection. Now, he’s down to around 80. Unlike some collectors, he wears every watch in his collection on a regular basis.
“If I don’t wear it, I probably shouldn’t have bought it,” he said.
His favorites include the F.P. Journe Tourbillion, which he describes as “the perfect watch,” while his rarest is the Urwerk UR-220 Grove Edition. The latter is one of only 23 that were personally commissioned by Michael Jordan for his golf club and never sold publicly. It took NYCWatchGuy, a Michael Jordan superfan, over three years of asking around before he was finally able to track the watch down.
That hunt, he said, is an integral part of why collecting rare luxury goods is such a thrill for people.
“Getting the watch is almost anti-climactic. The human psyche is such that the hunt is what has us in this hobby. That’s what keeps it exciting,” he said. “Just walking into the store and buying something is boring. That’s why I like the high-end independent [brands]. I don’t even own a Rolex. It doesn’t do anything for me.”
In addition to providing sales, NYCWatchGuy is impacting the watch category. He’s invested in the watch platform Bezel and founded an insurance company specializing in insuring rare collectibles — one client has a portfolio of trading cards worth millions, he said. Plus, he’s subsidized new watchmakers.
“I keep an eye on young designers who are just coming out of watchmaking school,” he said. “A lot of times they’ll post some of their creations and I think, ‘Imagine what they could do in a few years.’ So I reach out and tell them, ‘Hey, if you want to start your own brand, I’ll put a deposit on a watch and I’ll get five of my friends to put down deposits. We fund these designers early so they have a community behind them as they get off the ground.”
Linoya Friedman
Not every collector has an eye on the secondhand market.
Linoya Friedman is a fashion blogger and creator of the Instagram account What People Are Wearing, a street-style blog with over a million followers. While she collects products like sunglasses, handbags are her real passion, she said. Chanel, Gucci and Balenciaga bags form the bulk of her collection of around 25 bags, in all worth around $15,000.
Other current favorites are a suede Ralph Lauren bag — Friedman said Ralph Lauren is one of her favorite brands — and a Goyard bag purchased from the brand’s store in Paris. As she travels regularly for work, her bags are all over the place. Some are kept in her closet, others in her suitcase and others in a storage unit.
Unlike many collectors, Friedman said she rarely interacts with the secondhand market. The only bags she buys secondhand tend to be cheap, no-brand bags purchased from flea markets abroad.
Instead, she buys most of her bags new, often traveling to Europe to buy directly from brands where the prices are lower. In France, Birkin bags can be purchased for as much as $5,000 less than they are sold for in the U.S.
Friedman said she does own a few vintage designer bags, but they’re mostly bags that are not made anymore making it impossible to buy them new.
“If I were to buy something like a Birkin or a Kelly, that’s something I would absolutely want to buy new,” she said.
And once she has those bags, they rarely leave her collection. For Friedman, the investment isn’t for monetary value, it’s an investment in the future. She buys high-quality bags because they’ll last a lifetime.
“Even if I don’t wear them for years, I like to keep them,” Friedman said. “I like to see them in my collection, and I never know if I’ll wear it again someday. When I buy something, I want to own it for life.”
