By: Maura Carlin, Editor
Reports of the death of the luxury handbag are greatly exaggerated, to misuse a misquote from Mark Twain. By now you’ve seen the headlines from the New York Times and Wall Street Journal addressing how handbags are no longer the prestigious and coveted luxury item of recent years. IG and TikTok influencers amplify the message, giving their takes on why high-end designer bags are losing their allure, and brands are losing their market.
Image courtesy: @ela via TikTok
But, not so fast. Luxury and ‘it’ handbags have been declared dead before. Literally. A 2008 LA Times article headline read “From It to Obit” as it pronounced the “it” bag officially over. Back then, the Wall Street Journal explained why ‘it’ bags are out:
“For the past 10 years or so, fashion houses have churned out expensive bags with distinctive shapes and logos in the hopes that they’d catch on as that season’s sensation. Consumers, seeking the status a recognizable bag conferred, flocked to buy them, helping to fuel the recent luxury boom.
But as big luxury brands have expanded world-wide, offering more entry-level products to reach more consumers, some high-end shoppers are turned off. The proliferation of knockoffs has helped erode the mystique of owning a high-end bag. Affluent customers have grown confident in their own sense of style and increasingly turn to unique accessories to set themselves apart from the crowd. On top of that, the recent stock market selloff and downturn in consumer spending has many consumers shunning spending that could be considered ostentatious. As retailers head into the new year, some are declaring that ‘it’ is over.”
Sound familiar? It could have been written today, though the publish date is nearly two decades ago. High end consumers complaining about over-exposure and declining exclusivity, and the prevalence of dupe bags. And the public — buyers and nonbuyers alike — questioning the value of owning (and paying for) these items.
Yet within a decade of those obituaries, luxury handbags staged a full comeback. From roughly 2015 onward, the sector entered another boom. According to McKinsey & Company, personal luxury goods — fashion, leather goods, watches, jewelry — grew at a 5% compound annual rate between 2019 and 2023, outpacing global markets and setting new profitability records. Notably, 80% of that financial gain came from price increases, not volume growth.
The price hikes for handbags were dramatic. Particularly at the upper end of the luxury brand pyramid. The Chanel Classic Flap (medium) rose 76% in just four years. Extend the window to the decade starting in 2015, and the increase reaches 120% — context that helps explain why longtime Chanel customers feel burned.
Hermès took a different approach, at least initially. The Birkin 25 increased only 7.5% over seven years. Then, starting in 2022, prices jumped 34%. The restraint was real — until it wasn’t.
Comparing the prices of the Hermes Birkin 25 to the Chanel Medium Classic Flap from 2015-2026
Even some clients who can afford these bags are questioning whether they should. The price may not matter, but the growing ubiquity does: when everyone from Madison Avenue to Walmart knows the Birkin, the IYKYK quality is gone.
But it also doesn’t mean that these bags are no longer desired. Superfakes exist because people want that handbag without the cost and are willing to fake it. The resale or secondary market continues to expand because, at least in part, a growing group of consumers want these luxury bags and are willing to compromise condition and age for a piece of the luxury life. Despite Hermès’ dislike of the resale market, its existence buoys the price of retail bags and brings new clients to the brand.
Image courtesy: Walmart.com
Newness also attracts. Just look at the frenzy over the first Matthieu Blazy for Chanel collections. Combined with, perhaps intentionally, limited inventory, these are the bags that everyone is now talking about, and paying a premium for on the secondary market. Chanel hit number one in searches on the Lyst Index Q1 2026. For now. First collections like first book editions are unique. Whether this lasts remains to be seen.
Image courtesy: Vogue Runway
The NYT is right that the market has fragmented. But fragmentation doesn’t tell the whole story. Look more closely and what emerges is a split that runs deeper than aesthetics or status signaling — it’s economic. There are now effectively two luxury handbag customers, and they are having two very different experiences.
The aspirational buyer — the consumer who stretched for a Chanel Classic Flap and watched the price jump 120% over a decade — is the one primarily registering price revulsion. For her, the math no longer works, or no longer feels worth it. This is the customer the headlines are writing about.
Image courtesy: Red
The ultra-high-net-worth buyer is having a different experience. An eyebrow may be raised at the new price of a Birkin, for example, but that bag is coming home anyway. The bags are rarely available on demand and the higher the price, the fewer who can afford it. Exclusivity isn’t incidental to the purchase. It is the purchase.
Which is why the data driving these headlines deserves a closer look. According to a Lyst spokeswoman, as cited in the NYT, demand for women’s handbags was down 5.5% in April 2026 compared to April 2025. Worth noting: Lyst is a fashion search engine. Its metrics track online attention, not point-of-sale data. And as stated above, in early 2026, Chanel was top of the charts with the Blazy collections. Briefcase searches are up 14%, but so are back-to-the-office requirements. And it’s about time women’s clothing had pockets, so a 542% increase in searches is interesting and long overdue.
In other words, the Lyst data may not be the hill for the handbag to die on. Too soon to tell if this is really a trend.
What is clear is that the PurseBop community of bag lovers are still bag lovers. Debate still rages over which bags are best or hardest to get, which brands have earned their prices, and which have not. No one has yet suggested they’ll go without.The handbag, it seems, will have to wait a little longer for its obituary.
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