Luxus Starts Investment Fund Focused on Hermès Birkin, Kelly Bags

Luxus is eyeing a new category for investment, and starting a new fund to boot.

The Christie’s-backed wealth tech company founded by Blackstone alumna Dana Auslander is starting a new fund to the tune of $2 million, with a targeted focus on Hermès Birkin and Kelly handbags. “The thesis is that the investor and the collector are the same person,” Auslander said of the fund. “People invest in real estate, art, jewelry, watches. There have been funds that have been dedicated to those verticals, but nothing for handbags.”

Auslander had raised $1 million in May to pilot the concept, when she acquired 36 Kelly and Birkin handbags. “We flipped them right away in a combination of marketplaces,” she said, nodding to 1stDibs, Sotheby’s and Farfetch. Luxus has exited nine of those, with a gross return on investment of 40.9 percent.

Luxus is targeting entry-level bags for acquisitions, but may sprinkle in rarer styles down the line. “We focus on the bread-and-butter bags,” she said. “The browns, the blacks, the blues and geraniums. Those are the ones that flip over really fast, and then we have a few specialty bags and exotics.”

Auslander posited that the bags are a Veblen good, and prices are skyrocketing — particularly those of special provenance. Jane Birkin’s original Birkin bag, for example, sold for north of $10 million in Paris in July. Limited partners of the fund are almost entirely male. “It’s family offices, hedge fund traders, ultra-high-net-worth individuals,” Auslander said. “It’s not a gender thing, how valuable and scarce the bags are. This is just about understanding supply and demand mechanics and being able to work the arbitrage. The dynamics are incredible.”