I am one of those people that believe the more you spend on something the better quality it will be. I’m forever talking about cost per wear and am happy to make a more expensive purchase if I believe I will get the wear out of it. This is particularly the case when it comes to designer handbags.
I’ve lost count of the times I’ve read that investing in the right designer handbags could make you a bigger profit than investing in the stock market. I’ve decided to take a look at one of my own handbags, the Chanel Boy bag, to see if it was really worth splashing out on.
I should also say that I bought this bag because I fell in love with it, not with the intention of making money from it. I actually intend to keep for a very long time.
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Cost Per Wear Of Designer Handbags
In the interest of full disclosure I think I need to share how much I paid for my bag. I always find talking about money a little bit vulgar but here we go.
I bought my Chanel Boy in January of this year. It is limited edition and from the Paris Dallas Collection which I believe is from FW14/15. Now I obviously bought it pre-loved and know that it is 100% authentic. It cost me £3100. Yes I realise this is a huge amount of money. I have always wanted a Chanel handbag and it was a present to myself for my 30th/ 31st birthday. I also put myself on a spending ban for three months afterwards to make my bank balance a little healthier.
Before making the purchase (and actually any purchase regardless of cost) I always consider cost per wear and am forever making jokes that if you wear an item X amount of times it’s only £1 a time. I feel like I should be a bit more realistic with my cost per wear calculation. Say I wear my Chanel three times a week over the course of two years. This would be a total of 312 times making it just £9 per wear. We all know I’m going to wear this bag more than 312 times which really makes cost per wear even cheaper.
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Re-Sale
Like I said before I have zero intention of ever selling this bag but out of interest would I make any money on it? So many magazines have articles on which handbags you should spend your money on if you want to see some return on that investment. Elle has an article on the best investment bags and the Independent shares on each one.
I took to the internet to see if I could find my handbag and how much it was selling for. The best place to look for this is Vestiaire Collective. It is a pre-loved website which I have used in the past. Even though the items are pre-owned, some have never been worn. The team are also specially trained so authenticity is guaranteed.
A quick search brought up my bag but only in black so I’ll have to use this as a guide. The bag is priced at £5012.18. You can also go back and see bags that have already sold and find out what people paid for them. Again I came across the bag in black which sold for £3709.68. It is also available in a sort of orange colour for £4308.72.
While I haven’t found my exact bag it has given me a rough idea of the kind of return I could expect if I were to sell. It is also important to note that brands like Chanel are known to put up their prices. There were rumours that the Chanel increase was going to be in April this year. Reportedly the price of the Classic Medium Flap has increased by 70% over the last six years. With that in mind I can’t see how anyone can say (the right) designer handbags aren’t worth the money!
