In the luxury market, customers are often courted into making purchases and rewarded for their showcase of loyalty to a store or a brand. A returning client may have a chilled bottle of champagne waiting for them upon their next appointment, or their lunch paid for at the bistro next door after they’ve left the shop. Good sales associates remember birthdays and important milestones, they memorize coffee and scotch preferences and pets’ names, children’s birthdays. Yet when it comes to a Birkin, the perennial “It” handbag by French luxury design house Hermès, prospective buyers are the ones doing all of the wooing.
Madison Avenue Couture
Hermès sells the Birkin at retail for as low as $11,400 and as high as one could imagine (and then some, probably!). Considered one of the brand’s “quota” bags, each Birkin is meticulously crafted by hand by skilled artisans boasting generations of experience and using only the most exquisite materials. They apply this same attention to detail to the limits they place on production and purchasing power, thus increasing demand.
Madison Avenue Couture
So even at eye popping prices, not just anyone is allowed to purchase a Birkin. You have to earn the right, you have to, in the words of several TikToks, Reddit threads and blog posts offering advice for how to get one’s hands on a Birkin, “pledge allegiance to the brand,” become a “disciple” of Hermès and prove your loyalty through purchases of scarves, click clacks and key chains. The process can take years. And nothing is a guarantee. The bag’s status as a symbol of luxury, style and a uniquely refined grace, its impeccable craftsmanship, its practical functionality almost defiant in the face of all of that adulation, means that people will go to great lengths to get their hands on a Birkin. And first time buyers are almost immediately collectors, proselytizers just waiting for their next opportunity to own another Birkin.
Heritage Auctions
Of course, there are “folk tales” of people walking into the Hermès boutique in Paris for the first time and being offered a Holy Grail level Birkin (ultimately, it is up to the sales associates’ discretion to whom they sell a Birkin), this is decidedly not the norm. And even if you did just walk in off the street, you better be rocking Hermès in some way, shape or form; that aforementioned sales associate will be sizing you up the moment you step through those doors and you better be a good representation of the brand to even stand a chance of parting with all of that cash and being suddenly transformed into the person who now owns the one bag that can never ever go out of style.
Heritage Auctions
As the plethora of how-to-buy-a-Birkin gurus will preach, one also has the option to skip the line (sort of) and pay a premium to purchase a new or pre-owned Birkin through a re-sale website. Even if you can accept the inflated prices (think three times the retail price for a new Birkin on a resale site), you’re also at the mercy of what’s available. One’s dream Birkin includes the perfect combination of color, size and hardware. In a retail shop, these characteristics can only ever be hoped for, not insisted upon, but on the robust re-sale market, the most popular Birkin bags often don’t even make it online, they go directly to a good customer who has put his or her name on a wait list for specific features (and yes, the Birkin has cross gender appeal). So shopping re-sale sites has become as gamified as trying your chances at retail.
Heritage Auctions
Another option is shopping the Original Miami Beach Antique Show (OMBAS). Held annually at the Miami Beach Convention Center, the 2025 event is taking place January 9-13. While having “antique” in its name might be a confusing place to search for an item that is anything but, many OMBAS vendors consider themselves purveyors of collectables, and a Birkin bag decidedly fits that bill. Whether a primary focus of their stands, as with Madison Avenue Couture or Heritage Auctions, or sprinkled throughout their selection, such as with Greenwald Antiques, not only can visitors find a vast selection at the best possible prices, but they can also speak with knowledgeable dealers who can explain the nuances of individual bags.
Greenwald Antiques
Why is one leather more expensive than another? What are the most popular color/hardware/size combinations? What is the best size option for one’s particular lifestyle? Maybe, just maybe, if pressed, they might even share some intel about their celebrity clients, offering a glimpse into the glamorous ranks of Birkin owners that any OMBAS ticket holder can soon, finally, at long last, and without jumping through hoops, become.
