Money Can Buy You Everything, Except Maybe a Birkin Bag

Radio Atlantic

The Atlantic

News, Society & Culture, Politics

4.3 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 11 April 2024

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Is having a Birkin bag ... a right? Earlier this year, two California residents filed a class-action lawsuit against the French luxury design company Hermès. Their grievance was that although they could afford a coveted Birkin bag made by the company, they could not buy one. We talk to Atlantic staff writer Amanda Mull about the lawsuit and the current state of the luxury market. What do we actually want from luxury these days? Is there even such a thing anymore as a rare luxury good? And what handbag is Amanda carrying? Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/podsub. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	What's the most expensive handbag you personally own?
0:07.0	I purchased in 2012, I want to to say on my credit card at the time which was very stupid a Proinsa
0:18.0	Schooler PS1 bag that was like from the I think it was like pre-fall
0:23.4	2012 2013 I'm looking it up now just to see how much it costs.
0:27.6	Yeah it was a blanket print bag and it was in the large size and I think that
0:32.0	full price it was like the large size and I think that full price it was like $2,400 and I wrote for a
0:36.5	handbag industry publication at the time and I waited it out until it went down to like
0:42.0	1900 and then I bought it and which I had no
0:45.2	business doing but I still have it I love that bag I think it's an absolutely
0:49.4	beautiful piece of design and I have held on to it. I always will. I'm looking at it. It's actually
0:55.7	pretty cool. Looks practical and yeah if it fits a laptop. It fits a laptop exactly.
1:01.1	Yeah. This proud owner of a Proenza schooler is Amanda Mall,
1:06.0	also an Atlantic staff writer.
1:08.0	The bag that I carried to work today costs like 50 bucks.
1:11.0	It's canvas.
1:12.0	It is very practical. I don't buy expensive handbags anymore, but it can take a while to deprogram yourself.
1:18.9	Moll recently wrote about a different bag, a Birken bag. If bags were restaurants, the canvas tote would be a fast
1:26.9	casual chain, and the Birken would be a three-star Michelin spot with a mysterious, almost mythical reservation system.
1:35.7	The Birken bag dates to the 1980s.
1:38.4	It's not quite as old as the company itself.
1:40.8	There's a very sort of like perhaps apocryphal backstory to how it came about.
1:46.3	The then-ermes CEO was seated next to Jane Birken on an Air France flight.
	...

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