THE FASHION STOCK MARKET

Invest wisely, reap the rewards

- VANESSA FRIEDMAN

Hermès handbags have spawned a singular secondary market and have sold for jaw-droppingly high prices at auction. (One of those apocryphal fashion sayings has it that an Hermès bag is a better investment these days than gold.)

But lately it seems that Hermès is no longer alone. High-end handbags, like high-end sneakers, may be turning into an asset class of their own.

Which implies it may be time to stop thinking of that purse closet — or shelf, or wicker storage bin — as part of your wardrobe and to start thinking of it as part of an investment portfolio, complete with blue-chip stocks, the opportunity to short some names, and to make more money while doing so.

That’s what Charles Gorra thinks, anyway. He is the founder of Rebag, a luxury handbag resale site, and late last year, he introduced Clair, aka the Comprehensive Luxury Appraisal Index for Resale.

It is an algorithmic tool that shows bag owners the resale spot prices of their bags if they were to liquidate them immediately by selling to Rebag. (Unlike other resale sites, Rebag buys stock outright, rather than giving the owner a percentage of the sale when it occurs. Over the next few months, Gorra will introduce tracking features that allow you to see the rise and fall of those prices to better calculate the future value of a bag — and make a buying or selling decision in the moment.

“The information is: What percent of retail am I recouping?” he said during a demonstration of the tool. “I can see a time when people will buy bags differently based on that. The true value of a luxury brand is in its stickiness: its percent of retained value.”