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

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin

Episode: "Are Birkins Better Investments Than the Stock Market? The Truth About Luxury Investing with Dana Auslander"
Date: May 4, 2026
Guest: Dana Auslander, Founder of Luxus

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Episode Overview

In this engaging episode, Nicole Lapin explores the headline-grabbing question: Are Hermès Birkins better investments than the stock market? She welcomes Dana Auslander, a seasoned investment manager and founder of Luxus, the pioneering alternative investment firm with a dedicated Hermès handbag fund. Together, they dive into the realities of luxury investing—covering the economics behind Birkins, how returns actually compare to stocks, manufactured scarcity, market dynamics, the risks and rewards, and how ordinary investors can (or mostly can't) get involved.

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Key Points & Insights

The Birkin as an Investment Asset

• Viral Hype vs Reality

  • The idea that "Birkins outperform the S&P 500" is everywhere, but nuance is needed.
  • Dana clarifies investment performance, fees, and real returns vs. social media claims.
  • Nicole Lapin: “Headlines like these about the Birkin beating The S&P 500 have gone viral. But are they real?” [03:58]

• What’s a Veblen Good?

  • Birkins are classic “Veblen goods”—the rarer and more expensive, the more people want them.
  • Dana Auslander: “A Veblen Good is...when the price goes up, demand goes up.” [04:21, 15:13, 16:15]

• Access & Scarcity

  • Hermès “quota bags” (Birkins and Kellys) are notoriously hard to get—customers must spend $25k–$50k+ on other goods yearly just to qualify for a chance to buy one, and what you get depends on the sales associate.
  • Nicole Lapin: “These are very, very, very high class rich people problems to have...to maybe have the luxury or the privilege of dropping 15 grand on a bag that's maybe an ugly color.” [08:46]

Investment Performance & Structure

• What Are the Real Returns?

  • Luxus fund achieves gross 35–40% per bag, netting 25–27% after deep fee negotiations.
  • Average consumer might net 18–20% per bag, after platform/consignment fees.
  • Dana Auslander: “For our fund, at least per bag gross...35 to 40% and then net it's around 25, 27%...for the average consumer...probably...between 18 and 20% over its lifetime.” [06:41–07:06]

• Holding Periods

  • Luxus fund turns over bags in about 60 days, aiming for quick spreads rather than long-term appreciation.
  • Regular individuals might hold bags 5–10 years for best ROI.

• How Returns Compare to Stocks

  • Doubling money in Luxus’s Birkin fund: 2.5 years (30 months) vs. ~7 years in S&P 500 at 10% annualized returns.
  • Nicole Lapin: “Typically in the stock market it will take you about seven years...you're saying it will take you 30 months or two and a half years?” [11:23–11:41]
  • Dana Auslander: “You're not going to get those kinds of returns in any other asset class right now. Even AI is questionable...” [10:38]

The Realities of Buying and Selling

• Barriers to Entry

  • Buying direct from Hermès is almost impossible for “ordinary” people.
  • Most end up buying on resale markets—The RealReal, Rebag, What Goes Around Comes Around, Tradesy, eBay, etc.

• Consignment Fees & Friction

  • Fees can be 15–35% on resale platforms; highly negotiable, but rarely below 15%.
  • Only bags in pristine, “new in box” condition command significant price premiums.

• Liquidity

  • Secondary market for Birkins/Kellys is relatively active for desirable styles/colors; Luxus sells about one bag every 48 hours.
  • Dana Auslander: “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.” [25:45]

• Case Study: Jane Birkin’s Bag

  • Jane Birkin’s own Birkin sold at auction for $10.8 million (second-highest fashion item ever sold, after Dorothy’s red slippers at $30 million) [12:38–13:58]

Challenges, Risks, and Caveats

• Counterfeits

  • Fake Birkins are incredibly sophisticated. Even top platforms occasionally let counterfeits slip through.
  • Luxus uses AI-authentication (Entropy) and triple-checks authenticity.
  • Dana Auslander: “The fakes have gotten so good...you have to be very, very careful with what you buy.” [22:02]
  • “There’s so much volume...This is still the biggest market here in the US but...demand accelerate.” [22:40]

• Market Corrections

  • COVID created a bubble in secondary prices; prices have since corrected, but are still elevated.
  • Dana: “During COVID...people started buying Birkins and Kelly’s en masse...prices...skyrocketed...now...down to about 1.8, 1.9 [times retail].” [20:12]

• Access: Who Can Invest in Luxus?

  • Only accredited investors, with minimum $100k (probably rising to $250k) [32:26]
  • No direct access for smaller retail investors or SPVs (yet).

• Uncorrelated Asset

  • Luxury goods, especially quota bag Birkins/Kellys, are largely uncorrelated with the stock market and less affected by crises hitting more “aspirational” luxury brands. [39:22–41:07]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Excerpts

• On Returns:
  “So per bag it would probably be about 35 to 40% for our fund, at least per bag gross. And then NET it's around 25, 27% because of all the fees...for the average consumer...between 18 and 20% over its lifetime.”
  — Donna Auslander [06:41]

• On Platform Fees:
  “I sold a Birkin on The RealReal...and it did have somewhat of a return, but the fee is where you actually break even or lose some money from retail.”
  — Nicole Lapin [06:05]

• On Collector Sentiment:
  “I have seven Birkins. I would never sell any of them. I am attached to them. ...every single one of them has a story. I love walking around with them.”
  — Donna Auslander [16:55]

• On Counterfeits:
  “The fakes have gotten so good. ...It's impossible for something not to get through the system.”
  — Donna Auslander [22:02–22:40]

• On Manufactured Scarcity:
  “It's manufactured scarcity, but it works…The hype around it has only grown.”
  — Donna Auslander [09:08]

• On Who Gets In:
  “So far it's been family offices and ultra high net worth.”
  — Donna Auslander [34:57]

• Advice to Women:
  “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...”
  — Donna Auslander [46:53]

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Important Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment / Highlight | |:-------------:|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 03:46 | Nicole asks: "Are Birkins better investments than the stock market?" | | 04:21 | Dana introduces the economic concept of a "Veblen Good" | | 06:41 | Breakdown of expected returns from Birkins (gross & net); importance of fees | | 08:46 | Nicole on the hurdles and “high class problems” of buying a Birkin | | 11:23–11:41 | Comparing doubling time: Birkins vs. S&P500 | | 12:38 | Jane Birkin’s personal bag auctioned for $10.8M | | 16:15 | The psychology of raising price increases demand (Veblen effect) | | 22:02–22:40 | Deep dive into the problem of counterfeits | | 25:45 | How liquid is the Birkin market? Bag sells every 48 hours | | 32:26 | What it takes to invest in the Luxus fund—accredited, high capital needed | | 39:22 | The luxury market is uncorrelated with the broader equity market | | 43:35–45:51 | Quickfire ratings: watches (7), art (9), wine (2–3), jewelry (9) as investment classes | | 46:53 | Dana’s closing advice: Women, own your financial narrative |

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Asset Class Quick Ratings (by Dana Auslander)

• Watches: 7/10 (hit by crypto sell-off, depends on what you buy)
• Art: 9/10 for blue-chip Postwar/Contemporary, lower for other types
• Wine: 2/10 (weakening market, younger generations not buying)
• Jewelry: 9/10 (vintage especially strong, newer pieces more volatile due to gold price swings)

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Final Takeaways & Actionable Tips

For Listeners:

• Birkin as an Investment: If you can buy a Birkin at retail direct from Hermès, it’s likely to outperform many traditional investments—but it’s nearly impossible, and the secondary market’s returns are heavily reduced by fees and premiums.
• Risks Are Real: Counterfeits, market corrections, and resale friction mean this is not a “get rich quick” plan for the uninitiated.
• For Most Investors: Getting exposure to Birkins via funds like Luxus is only accessible to accredited investors with significant capital.
• Manufactured Scarcity Drives Price: Only a narrow slice of Hermès bags are investment-grade—don’t assume any Chanel or other luxury bag has the same investment thesis.
• Women & Financial Literacy: Dana encourages women to master their own financial stories—equities, alternatives, and beyond.

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Closing Quote

“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.”
— Dana Auslander [46:53]

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In Summary:
Birkins can outperform the stock market—but only under very specific circumstances, with high barriers to entry, and significant risks. Most people are better off staying diversified and choosing investments they can access and understand. For those with access and expertise, luxury investing is a fascinating—and lucrative—frontier.

Transcript

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[Nicole Lapin]

Jobs Are Birkins better investments than the stock market? What would the average annual return actually be per bag?

[Donna Oslander]

It would probably be about 35 to 40% for our fund, at least.

[Nicole Lapin]

Headlines like these about the Birkin beating 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 Birkin fund. So she tells me the truth about luxury investments.

[Donna Oslander]

Our mez is known as a Veblen Good. A Veblen Good is this economic philosophy where when the price goes up, demand goes up.

[Nicole Lapin]

How to invest in a Birkin without actually buying one?

[Donna Oslander]

The only way to be able to invest in Birkins and Kelly's in my opinion, is through a fund through a diversified portfolio of bags and the mind

[Nicole Lapin]

blowing numbers behind it all.

[Donna Oslander]

It started, I want to say, at about a mil, not a million, $700,000. And I just wanted it to hit a million because then it would justify the investment thesis. And it just kept going and going and going and finally it ended up with a Japanese reseller at 10.8 million.

[Nicole Lapin]

I'm Nicole Lapvin, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for some Money rehearsals. Donna Oslander, welcome to Money Rehab.

[Donna Oslander]

Thanks for having me.

[Nicole Lapin]

So excited to answer the age old question, or I don't know if it's age old question, the Instagram old question, or tick tock old question. Are Birkins better investments than the stock market?

[Donna Oslander]

Well, Hermes trades at 43x of its valuation, so it's very expensive stock. The only way to be able to invest in Birkins and Kelly's, in my opinion is through a fund, through a diversified portfolio of bags. If you want to buy one for your personal collection, sure, you'll be, 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 resale platforms take a big cut from the consignment fee, as we know.

[Nicole Lapin]

Oh, that's for sure. I actually have been there. I sold a Birkin on the real. Real.

[Donna Oslander]

Yeah.

[Nicole Lapin]

And it did have somewhat of a return, but the fee is where you actually break even or lose some money from retail.

[Donna Oslander]

Absolutely. And it's, 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 Birkin.

[Nicole Lapin]

Yeah. Because what you're seeing online are all these charts that are like gross of fees.

[Donna Oslander]

Yeah.

[Nicole Lapin]

Huge. Like up and to the right, you know. But what would the average annual return actually be? Gross and then minus some of the platform.

[Donna Oslander]

So per bag it would probably be about 35 to 40% for our fund, at 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

[Nicole Lapin]

20% over its lifetime.

[Donna Oslander]

Over its, its 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, your ROI on it probably will be about 18 to 20% on the consumer side.

[Nicole Lapin]

And typically how long is somebody going to hold that bag then? 10 years, 5 years?

[Donna Oslander]

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 Birkin, but on the spread between the primary market and the secondary market.

[Nicole Lapin]

And so we break that down in English. Okay. So if somebody doesn't know how much is a Birkin?

[Donna Oslander]

A Birkin is 14, like a 30 is $14,900. So $15,000. When I bought my first Birkin, it was 4,800 Euro in 2005. And so our mess has increased the price on it like substantially. However, our mess, Birkins and Kelly's are 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 Hermes 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.

[Nicole Lapin]

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 something to make nice nice with the sales people to maybe have the luxury or the privilege of dropping 15 grand on a bag that's maybe an ugly color.

[Donna Oslander]

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 RealReal back in 2012 was when all of it became sort of digital. You had Amazon and ebay obviously get into resale and 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 Hermes with, without any kind of feedback from Hermes. And you know, Hermes just kind of stays away from all the resellers and the hype has just gotten crazy. And you have TikTok and Instagram, you have solopreneurs who just have fan accounts and are selling bags all day long. So the ecosystem around it has made the demand skyrocket.

[Nicole Lapin]

I mean I am partial. My best friend did start tradesy so we have to put them in the mix.

[Donna Oslander]

Sorry, there's too many to count.

[Nicole Lapin]

Okay, so then let's follow the lifecycle 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 a double digit return is insane.

[Donna Oslander]

Well, for us that's what's important. And you know because we are a fund. So it's diversified like portfolio of bags, just like you would in a real invest in a real estate fund. And the idea is to return to X of moic.

[Nicole Lapin]

Oh, I see.

[Donna Oslander]

Is multiple on invested 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 1 1/2x. But fund two that we launched 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 MOIC. 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. And those valuations are through the roof. This is a more modest but much, much more capacity constrained strategy.

[Nicole Lapin]

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 seven years. If you're thinking of a 10% year over year rate of return, it will take you about seven years to double your money. So you're saying it will take you

[Donna Oslander]

30 months or two and a half years? Yeah.

[Nicole Lapin]

Okay.

[Donna Oslander]

Because again, these are Birkins 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 plastic 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 and the Millennials are buying. Pre loved, pre owned. The beater 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 and Gen Z, the only entry point into a Birkin R. Kelly is going to be the secondary market. They're not going to be able to walk into Hermes and create the spending limit. So that's really for boomers and the Gen Xers for right now and some lucky millennials. But the secondary market is really, really become the place for the, the growth to explode. So all of our activities, the fund's activities are happening in the secondary market

[Nicole Lapin]

going back to what's become popularized is buying the actual bag. And we saw Jane Birkin, like the muse of the Birkin itself. Her bag sold for $10.1 million in. Oh, you were in the room, in the room. Where it happened.

[Donna Oslander]

It was crazy.

[Nicole Lapin]

Tell me.

[Donna Oslander]

Every minute B minute bidding war. And it was. Where did it start? Insane. It started, I want to say, at about a mil, not a million $700,000. And I just wanted it to hit a million because then it would justify the investment thesis. And it just kept going and going and going. And finally it ended up with a Japanese reseller at 10.8 million.

[Nicole Lapin]

Oh, 10.8. Damn. Does a bag like that also experience the annual rate of return that.

[Donna Oslander]

Well, that's a provenance bag. So that's only, you know, Jane Birkin only had four bags. Four Birkins or five Birkins. The other one, a second one was sold off by Sotheby's also in Abu Dhabi for 3 million in December of last year. I was there for that, too. And then the other two are with her daughters and will probably get passed down to her grandkids. But yeah, she was the muse of the Birkin bag, as 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 Dorothy's red slippers.

[Nicole Lapin]

Oh, wow.

[Donna Oslander]

That was for, I think, 30 million.

[Nicole Lapin]

Wow, what a life you live, Donna.

[Donna Oslander]

Yeah.

[Nicole Lapin]

This sounds amazing. So is that the most expensive Birkin ever?

[Donna Oslander]

Yes. Yes. That's the. That's the biggest sale for any handbag ever.

[Nicole Lapin]

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 Birkin, we're going to talk about how to invest in the Birkin without actually buying it itself. But I want to step back and talk about this holy trinity. The Hermes, the Chanel. Because it's not just the Birkin or the Kelly, as you mentioned, that can yield a return that sometimes rivals the stock market.

[Donna Oslander]

Right. So in my opinion, it is just the quota bags, because Chanel, for instance, and I love Chanel. Chanel has raised its prices by almost 90% since COVID and it's turned a lot of the consumer sentiment off a little bit. Although they are having a great comeback right now with Matthew Blase and. But it's shoes. It's their shoes.

[Nicole Lapin]

I don't even know who that is.

[Donna Oslander]

Creative director. New creative director. The only. In our opinion, the only investment grade handbag is the Birkin or the Kelly.

[Nicole Lapin]

But hold on. If they raise their prices 90%, that would be an appreciation. So if you bought it before that price hike, you would have made that if you sold it.

[Donna Oslander]

Yeah. But then the Secondary market premiums haven't been keeping up with that. So our mess is known as a Veblen Good. A Veblen good is this economic philosophy where when the price goes up, demand goes up. And Hermes, Patek 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 a flat bag from Chanel and you paid $8,500 for it, and 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.

[Nicole Lapin]

Right. So you touched on a really important point that the Birkins and maybe the Kelly's, I would say, but the Hermes bags and the petite Patek, it's a lot. No, I know what it is, but I can never say it because I don't have one. And the Ferraris, right, 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.

[Donna Oslander]

Yeah. And you know, the whole concept of a Veblen Good is when you raise the price, there's a psychology that the consumer wants it even more. And so demand skyrockets.

[Nicole Lapin]

So fine. The Chanel flat bag that the Internet says is also an investment grade bag

[Donna Oslander]

is not, in my opinion, it's not okay.

[Nicole Lapin]

So if somebody is buying a Birkin, they're like, okay, I get to hold the Birkin, I get to touch the Birkins, maybe smell the Birkin. I don't know what you do, though. Birkin, 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?

[Donna Oslander]

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 have seven Birkins. I would never sell any of them. I am attached to them. They mean they, they represent certain milestones in my career. I got my very first one with a Blackstone bonus that I received in 2005. I had to go 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, Hermes will not be happy if you Do. Do that.

[Nicole Lapin]

Well, don't tell me.

[Donna Oslander]

Yeah, right. They'll find out.

[Nicole Lapin]

I don't know. So, Donna, we had Kevin o' Leary on the show, and he said the same thing about his labubu. And I was like, Kevin, $5 million for your labubu. $10 million for your labubu. If I said to you, I'm gonna give you $5 million, you wouldn't sell any of your Perkins.

[Donna Oslander]

I mean, I don't know. I don't think I. That would never happen. But I, you know, they mean something to me. I mean that every. 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 and a V, I really wanted to have the exact same Birkin that she did, that she walked around the streets with. And so I bought it, and I call. At that point, you could call Hermes 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 that's really what's changed.

[Nicole Lapin]

You can't bribe the salespeople.

[Donna Oslander]

No.

[Nicole Lapin]

Have people tried?

[Donna Oslander]

They don't get commission. No, they don't get commissions. They don't get commissions on the quarterbacks.

[Nicole Lapin]

So what are their salaries? They must be high.

[Donna Oslander]

They are. They're high. And I think they do get commissions on, like, homeware and. And other. And clothes and shoes and belts, but I don't think they don't definitely don't get commission on the quarterback.

[Nicole Lapin]

So there's no incentive. There's no way to game the system.

[Donna Oslander]

They also, like, you don't even know how many Birkins and Kelly's will end up at each Hermes store. 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've seen it. I'm sure you've seen. I mean, I'm doing. I've never done it, but I mean, it's. It's. You see it on TikTok. Like, there's unboxings. Social media has really amplified all of this, for sure.

[Nicole Lapin]

And, you know, generally in entertainment right now, everybody's talking about live streaming and live shopping. That's a huge and growing category. How do you think the, the popularity of that has impacted. It's a normal, like you're not going to see, you know, the, the videos that are going around of how fast they do it in some of these live shopping shows. Like I'm assuming a Birkin is not going to go in that we have

[Donna Oslander]

our first live selling event neck tomorrow with ebay and they are putting all of their eggs in the luxury basket now. And so more Higgins who is in 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 Birkin every hour on the hour for a dollar. And as a start off point, sure. And don't worry, we've, we've, we've handled the economics behind the scenes, 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.

[Nicole Lapin]

What's the lowest an auction or a secondary site has had a Birkin?

[Donna Oslander]

I mean I think they usually do go, unless they're really beat up, they'll go for a little bit above retail. So they'll, you know, we'll probably end up somewhere between 10 to 15% 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, 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 Birkins and Kelly's en masse 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's says that, you know, it's usually within 2x of the price of the Birkin. So a Birkin, a brand new Birkin with the orange box receipt, everything went for two times its price at the height of the COVID pandemic and now it's gone down to about 1.8, 1.9. Really?

[Nicole Lapin]

That's crazy. I was on the other side of that trade. I was so scared during that time and I was like, gotta get rid of this. I know Birkin, 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, you know, huge global events like that, you would think that people aren't buying luxury goods.

[Donna Oslander]

It's the K shaped economy really at play here. I mean you've got the, the very, very wealthy just getting wealthier and wealthier and what they're spending their money on is mostly cars and watches and Birkins and experiences and women. I mean this is, that's the one luxury good that women really care about. And every guy who's making a lot of money in the K shaped recovery has a wife or a mom or a sister or someone who really wants a Birkin.

[Nicole Lapin]

Counterfeits are so good, so good. How has that affected the market?

[Donna Oslander]

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 Birkin is authentic. One is called Entropy and But, but it's. The fakes have gotten so good. It's a non negotiable 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. Again, all of my seven Birkins have been bought directly from Hermes. So I know they're real, but I think it's really scary what's going on out there.

[Nicole Lapin]

Well, even there was an article about the real real that there were some fakes that got through the system.

[Donna Oslander]

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 Birkins and Kelly's running around all over the world right now, from Asia to the Middle east to Europe to here. This is still the biggest market here in the US but the K shaped economy, economic recovery has only made demand accelerate.

[Nicole Lapin]

Explain the K shaped economy for somebody who's trying to visualize well the case.

[Donna Oslander]

There's a lot of letters, the K shaped economy. What I'm thinking of is the, is that the ultra high net worth, the family office money is just multiplying and becoming even wealthier whereas the average consumer is not spending any more. And so it's taken out the aspirational consumer. So people aren't really buying unless they absolutely have to. If they don't have a lot of money still to spend. However, the ultra high net worth and the people who are making a lot of money on the top side of the kids, this is what they're mostly buying. This experiences, cars, watches, art. That market's doing pretty well.

[Nicole Lapin]

What's the telltale sign of a fake.

[Donna Oslander]

The stitching, for me, it's the stitching. I can really tell if I see something off on that. There's blind stamps that Armas puts on the bags that are, if they're put in the wrong place, somebody that will know is, will really understand authenticity, will 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.

[Nicole Lapin]

What's a blind stamp? It's like an invisible stamp.

[Donna Oslander]

Yeah. I also think that there's going to be an interesting digital passport situation happening in Europe with Hermes. Chanel has already implemented it 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.

[Nicole Lapin]

What does that mean? Like a token or.

[Donna Oslander]

That's a good question. I mean, you know, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's. Is it invasive? Is it non invasive? Chanel has a card that goes with a bag. But our med so far hasn't done or said anything about this. So we'll see what, what, what they're gonna have to do. They're gonna have to comply somehow. But I don't really know how they're going to do it.

[Nicole Lapin]

I mean, when Liberation Day came around, there were a bunch of videos from China in particular saying that they make the Birkins and they would sell directly to a consumer. Did you see that?

[Donna Oslander]

Yeah. But all, all Birkins and Kelly's are made in France. Nothing is made out of France.

[Nicole Lapin]

And so all because they looked 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 validity.

[Donna Oslander]

There's no way. No, no. I mean, I think I would recommend that you listen to the acquired podcast on Hermes. It's a four hour deep dive. It's fascinating what Hermes has done and how they continue to grow. They've been around for 188 years. And this manufacturer scarcity around those two bags styles has been unbelievable.

[Nicole Lapin]

And if you buy a Birkin or you know, buy a secondhand book and how liquid is the next market? Whether it's second or third, it's pretty liquid.

[Donna Oslander]

It's for a Birkin or Kelly, especially in the desired styles and, 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.

[Nicole Lapin]

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 fees?

[Donna Oslander]

It's tough. I mean, there are 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 if for Birkin R. Kelly, in other words, don't pay. Sorry, don't pay more than 15% commission on it.

[Nicole Lapin]

But what I found out is that that commission's negotiable too.

[Donna Oslander]

Yeah, 100%. But they usually won't go below 15%. We do. We get like, even with the first institutional check here, and we basically get 10, 5 to 10%. It's hard. It's hard to get the commissions because it's, it's how these guys are making their money. The resell platform. Platform.

[Nicole Lapin]

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 Hermes dedicated investment fund? Sure.

[Donna Oslander]

So I'm a longtime private equity and hedge fund executive. I'm a lawyer. I did fund formation for years at Schulte Roth. I worked with Citadel and Lone Pine and those guys when they came out. And then I had. I headed product development and structuring at Blackstone in the hedge fund group for close to a 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 love the Los Angeles jewelry designers. Anita Ko 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, went back to hedge funds. And during COVID during the pandemic, someone set me a prospectus for art, for fractional investment in art, in a. In a Basquiat. And I was like, I can do a way better job structuring this than they have. And I've been doing this my entire life. So I started Luxus in 2021. It was when venture financing was Flowing and crypto and NFTs and metaverse were all the rage. But it was never really comfortable for me. I really like the world of accredited investors and qualified purchasers. I, I liked the institutionality of it all. So I always try to create those investment opportunities around institutional concepts. So we got Christie's on our cap table. 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 gems and jewelry, fancy color diamonds at first, and then we found really great product market fit with family offices. And my thesis was always that the investor and the collector are 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 are, have art collectors or car collectors or wine collectors and, 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 Birkin technically. And that category just kind of skyrocketed. I ended up wanting to do Hermes when Trump was elected literally the week of November 2024. And I had just listened to the acquired podcast, which was brilliant. And I'd known Hermes 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 Christie's, 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? Hermes. So put our head down, did a lot of R and 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 and immediately sold a whole bunch of Birkins and Kelly's. At the time it was just new in the box. And I know you're gonna ask how do you source? In a minute, I'll tell you that.

[Nicole Lapin]

But where do you store them? Where are these?

[Donna Oslander]

They're all in New York, they're all in the Showrooms of the resellers. So they're all insurance temperature controlled safes and vaults. And it was a huge hit. I mean people really loved it. We started doing experiences in the Hamptons and in the city, educating women about financial literacy, but also explaining the history of our mask. 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% in 2025. And it's just, it's an incredible story. So we launched the second share 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 we buy low, 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's 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 undeployed capital. Both funds are up 26% net, 35% gross. And we're launching Fund 3 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.

[Nicole Lapin]

That's not tiny dollars to me. Those are many dollars to me. But then how does somebody invest in that fund?

[Donna Oslander]

Just like you would invest in any private fund. We have an administrator. You get, you sign a subscription document, it's open only to accredited investors and it's a high minimum investment. It's $100,000 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 Sotheby's, on the RealReal, on First Dibs, eBay. And they sell.

[Nicole Lapin]

So you don't actually ever take possession of them. You say they're at these secondary retailers.

[Donna Oslander]

No, we do take, I mean their own, it's their portfolio, we own them. They get bought from all over the World. But really the first couple of were, the first two funds were in the US only they're shipped to New York. They are authenticated, they're inspected, they're cataloged, they're all being photographed, they are 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 resale 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 milken. At least 10 or 15 of the bags will be.

[Nicole Lapin]

They're on tour.

[Donna Oslander]

They're on tour. We're also, we're also generating passive income with them by renting them out to the movie studios around here. And be careful. No, no. Well those only the pre owned. The pre owned ones.

[Nicole Lapin]

Oh, I see, I see.

[Donna Oslander]

Yeah.

[Nicole Lapin]

So being an accredited investor just basically means you self attest that you have a certain amount of money which is

[Donna Oslander]

what 200 now 200,000 person and I think 300 couple.

[Nicole Lapin]

And basically it's you know, a self attestation. You should tell the truth and it shows that you are comfortable with this level of risk and that you would be okay if you lost all of this money. Essentially, yes.

[Donna Oslander]

And we also screen people. I mean this is still an 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, you know, technically illiquid. The authenticity risk is real. You have counterparty risk with the resellers, believe it or not. So we want to make sure that everyone who is invested is really part of the LP community that enjoys both making money and spending it and also experiencing it.

[Nicole Lapin]

So regular people can't invest or have you allowed like an spv which is a.

[Donna Oslander]

So far, no. So far it's been family offices and ultra high net worth.

[Nicole Lapin]

Let the people in, Donna. Yeah, let the ladies that we're still fractional.

[Donna Oslander]

We're a small little.

[Nicole Lapin]

One day.

[Donna Oslander]

Yeah, one day.

[Nicole Lapin]

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 Neuralink or you know, XI at the time is buying a Birkin. Like a proxy for investing in Hermes or.

[Donna Oslander]

No, because Hermes does trade at a 40. Like well now it's 43x premium. So it's expensive.

[Nicole Lapin]

How much is the stock?

[Donna Oslander]

The stock, it's. It's listed on Euronext. I Want to say that it's about 1800 Euro a share, but it's, it's, it's down 20 this year. So if you do want to invest in our Mezla company, this is a good time to buy.

[Nicole Lapin]

It's on sale.

[Donna Oslander]

I mean the, the equity. Right, the equity is tucked. Yeah. Because of the war.

[Nicole Lapin]

How would your fund relate to the price of the stock, if at all?

[Donna Oslander]

It's not really correlated because ours are physical assets and we actively manage that, 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 Knight Frank on the handbag, the luxury handbag report that's coming out April 23rd. Yeah, so we're creating a whole market, a 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 in the live selling stream? Is it right for that? We just partnered with Julian's Auctions on Gwyneth Paltrow's auction and we sourced the same bag that Margot Tannenbaum had. So, you know, trying to create narratives and storytelling around an investment, but also a consumer good at the same time.

[Nicole Lapin]

I mean, vast majority of people aren't able to buy a Birkin 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 this 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?

[Donna Oslander]

Yeah, I mean you could. It's. How would you get it though, and at what price? That's the issue. You're not going to get it from Hermes. 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?

[Nicole Lapin]

So how do you buy low or is this.

[Donna Oslander]

Well, we're the first institutional check, so we have to tap into a whole lot of private network dealers on WhatsApp that have been doing this for the last 10, 15 years.

[Nicole Lapin]

On WhatsApp.

[Donna Oslander]

We don't do it. We don't, yeah, we don't do it directly, but we work with the resellers. We have partners both on 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.

[Nicole Lapin]

So this is not a like try it at home, no situation.

[Donna Oslander]

No, no, no, no, no. A lot of work goes into this. Every bag, we have 80 bags now between fund one and fund two, we'll have 800 by the end of the year. Every single bag and every purchase we make has to have an intentional exit. It's a lot

[Nicole Lapin]

for 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 Hermes stock, but the private market, is still holding. Why does that happen?

[Donna Oslander]

Well, I mentioned the K shaped economy before, but luxury also is first of all the experience. Economy's taken off big time time and the luxury companies have leaned into it quite, quite and that's paid off. But luxury is also coming off of a little bit of a slump for them. LVMH 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 exactly more aspirational than super, super ultra high net worth and that's backfired. You can't be all things to all people. The luxury companies that have done really well at Richemont, which is the, the owner of Cartier and Van Cleef, Prada which now owns Versace, but also Miu Miu. Miu Miu's done really, really well. And Armes, Hermes actually has done really well compared to LVMH and Kering, but they're all starting to they all bet big on the Middle East. They 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 their big growth plans, and we listened to all the quarterly calls that happened right before the war started. The biggest plans were to expand in Dubai and Abu Dhabi and Riyadh and all that's been scrapped. So the equities have taken quite a hit.

[Nicole Lapin]

So it's uncorrelated to the overall stock market.

[Donna Oslander]

Yeah, I mean, again, it depends the single brand, the single name brands like Brunello, Cuccinelli, Prada, Richemont, 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, it's the, the luxury equity names that have tried to become aspirational like lvmh, Louis Vuitton and Kering that have taken more of a hit.

[Nicole Lapin]

Coach.

[Donna Oslander]

Coach. Well, Coach. Yeah.

[Nicole Lapin]

If you're getting the bag, it's not an actual hedge in the intrinsic value. Right. Like you have a beautiful Birkin on the floor right now. A red Birkin. Like the, the value of that material

[Donna Oslander]

is not manufactured scarcity. Yeah.

[Nicole Lapin]

It's not like, unless it's gold made out of gold.

[Donna Oslander]

Yeah. But it's not. Yeah, it's not, it's not a, it's not a precious metal. It's not a scarce diamond. It's just manufactured scarcity. But it is a Birkin or 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 Birkin and the Kelly can't even get an Evelyn. And Evelyn is another bag, a Constance, it's another Hermes. Bags. Those are not quota bags. And so this is manufactured scarcity. It's completely imposed by Hermes via its store policy. And that's really what we're leveraging.

[Nicole Lapin]

And you don't think that manufactured scarcity ever goes away?

[Donna Oslander]

I don't think it'll go away in the next, I would say five to 10 years. And at that point we'll already expand because what we're doing right now is we're still a wealth, we're a wealth type tech company. So what we're doing is we're just doing our mes first and then we're going to move over to watches, to wines and spirits, to jewelry. So we're just testing these, this thesis out now and then moving on to other categories in a horizontal integration. I don't think Hermes is going to change. It's, it's, it hasn't changed its policy in 47 years since the Birkin was created. I don't think it's going to change it anytime soon.

[Nicole Lapin]

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 Birkin, they

[Donna Oslander]

still love a Birkin, but their entry point is in our mess anymore. It's, it's the real real, it's ebay, it's first dibs, 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 RMS clients are the Gen X and the boomers and I'm not sure how well cultivated the Gen Z and the millennials and the Gen Alpha community is.

[Nicole Lapin]

Well, there's a big wealth transfer on the horizon. A lot of Gen Z will be cutting a bunch of bags, no doubt. So can we, if you're gonna continue to go horizontal across luxury, will you just rate these asset classes for us? So watches 1 to 10 good investment.

[Donna Oslander]

The crypto market interfered with watches because so many crypto bros bought watches and then when FTX happened and they lost all their money, they sold them. So it caused the watch market to kind of plummet a little. Rolex especially was hit. But I still think it's a, if you narrowly define the category it's a good investment. It just depends what watch.

[Nicole Lapin]

So a seven.

[Donna Oslander]

Seven. Yeah. Art again post war contemporary is like a nine and then I would say other genres are more a five or four of four. The art market's coming out of a little bit of a slump now also but it's, it's always blue chip arts always going to do really, really well wine wines in like a 2 or 3 because Geno Gen Z, Gen Alpha and the younger folks aren't drinking so the sales have gotten very, very, very tepid and there's a lot of inventory sitting out there. I love my Chateau Margaux personally. So to me it's going to be a passion project that I'm definitely, definitely doing a wine fond. But you also, the introduction of GLP drugs also has made people not want to drink as much. So the beverage industry's 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.

[Nicole Lapin]

Yeah. Wine has always been a weird one. When I was at cnbc, I did, like, an alternative investment series, and the wine one was. There's a Vinfolio, as, you know, like an index that tracks it. I have not looked at the Vin

[Donna Oslander]

Folio recently, but it's really taken a big hit. Like, it's. Yeah, I'm sure it's taking a big hit. So, anyway, we'll see.

[Nicole Lapin]

Okay. What about jewelry, which is where jewelry I love.

[Donna Oslander]

I mean, to my. It's my. It's my passion. I think vintage jewelry from the 30s and the 40s, Cartier, Bulgari, Van Cleef will always do really, really well. Collectors love that, and they flock to it. I think newer 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 Anita Co or Irene Newerth or Jessica McCormick, one day it'll be too expensive to create a piece, and the next day the price will, like, plummet. So I think the volatility of precious metals has really kind of rocked that world, but it's still a nine out of 10 for me.

[Nicole Lapin]

So if somebody is thinking about investing in the stock market or getting a

[Donna Oslander]

Birkin, I still think that it depends when in the stock market, but I still think getting a Birkin, if you can get it from Hermes at retail, you always get the broken.

[Nicole Lapin]

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.

[Donna Oslander]

Yeah, give the. I mean, listen, it's. It's a. It's something that you're going to have forever and ever. You will pass it down to your kids, to your grandkids. The same styles that were selling out so well 20 years ago when I got my Carolyn Bessat 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 Hermes is just timeless. It's just. It's always going to be there.

[Nicole Lapin]

Donna, we end our episodes by asking all of our guests for a tip that listeners can take straight to the bank. What would you leave them with?

[Donna Oslander]

The Financial Literacy for Women piece. 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, 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, seek out all financial literacy programs for women and become the master of your own story.

[Nicole Lapin]

That's right. Buy your own Birkin. You don't need to convince somebody else. Yeah.