Luxury Bag News Roundup
December 5 - December 11 2022
Welcome to the second installment of Mynt Condition’s weekly luxury bag news roundup!
Balenciaga drops lawsuit
ICYMI (though you probably didn’t), Balenciaga sparked major controversy after it ran two almost unfathomable ad campaigns: The first featured children holding bags shaped like bondage-clad teddy bears. (I feel the need to say that while the campaign was horrid, so are the bags.) The second head-scratching campaign included documents from a Supreme Court case about child pornography.
After public outcry, Balenciaga quickly issued apologies — while trying to deflect at least some of the blame by filing a $25 million lawsuit against the producers of the latter ad campaign, claiming that the directive was to include fake legal records from a prop house, not a real SCOTUS ruling.
Not surprisingly, this sparked yet another outcry as people argued that the producers shouldn’t be blamed for Balenciaga’s ads. And so, after many, many missteps, Balenciaga confirmed (via Instagram) that it is “not pursuing litigation” and will take steps to “learn from their mistakes as an organization.”
More handbag lovers are turning to personal shoppers
Handbag enthusiasts who are tiring of waiting in line outside boutiques only to be told a bag is “display only” or sold out completely are turning to personal shoppers with connections to source their desired items.
Charging somewhere between $100-$200 per item (plus commission on higher-ticket treasures), personal shoppers with direct access to staff at Chanel, Hermes, and other luxury boutiques are increasing in demand — even as a recession potentially looms.
The staff at these exclusive boutiques “see us as a moneymaking machine” one personal shopper stated. Often, the personal shoppers buy via “clean transactions,” meaning in their client’s name and using their client’s credit card — this avoids any optics that might look like they are acting as a reseller.
The irony that the boutiques see these personal shoppers as a moneymaking machine, when they could get the same money from the clients’ whose cards the personal shoppers are using is not lost on us…
Goyard has a quota
It’s long been known that Hermes has a quota for bag purchases. When Chanel instituted a two-bags-per-year quota on classic styles, that too received plenty of press. But Goyard has a quota? How did we all miss that one? (Maybe we weren’t buying enough Goyard to notice…)
In any case, it came to light that Goyard has a quota system capping any individual at five items per year. Unlike Chanel and Hermes, however, Goyard’s quota system seems to apply to any Goyard item, including things like coin purses and pet accessories.
What do you think of Goyard having a quota?