Exclusive | NYC boutique racks up used handbag – Business News
Tariffs could also be rattling the retail world, however they aren’t stopping New York’s wealthiest girls from dropping $15,000 on luxurious purses — even when they’re secondhand.
Madison Avenue Couture is a discreet business that operates behind thick glass doorways on an higher flooring of a nondescript tower on West 57th Street. The Midtown Manhattan showroom is accessible by appointment solely, and solely after a rigorous vetting course of.
“We make sure they are legit,” chief govt Judy Taylor advised The Post, when requested how guests are verified. “This isn’t a store where you can just come in and browse.”
Nevertheless, business is booming.
The NYC showroom is outfitted with a number of surveillance cameras and panic buttons. Tamara Beckwith
While a lot of the fashion world struggles, MAC — which focuses on pristine, beforehand owned Hermès, Chanel, and Louis Vuitton baggage — is on monitor to grow 30% this 12 months. Last 12 months, it bought $50 million value of baggage, a 35% bounce from 2023.
Most of the amount occurs online. Last month, during a 90-minute go to with The Post, MAC’s VP of gross sales, Alexis Clarbour, was interrupted twice by a money register ringtone on her cellphone. The first was an alert for the sale of a $4,500 Chanel clutch. The second was for a $5,450 Hermès Picotin.
On April 29 alone, as Taylor and Clarbour had been busy opening a new boutique in Palm Beach, Fla., Clarbour mentioned her cellphone ka-chinged 5 instances earlier than midday – netting the company $265,000.
“We could finally relax on the beach for an hour,” Clarbour joked.
Madison Avenue Couture focuses on beforehand owned Hermès baggage. Tamara Beckwith
The luxurious market, which exploded during the pandemic, has cooled for giants like LVMH and Chanel. But MAC continues to thrive, with a shift towards lower-priced stock serving to drive gross sales.
Paris-based Hermès – whose coveted Birkin and Kelly baggage can price wherever from $20,000 to $500,000 relying on supplies and rarity – not too long ago warned of price hikes in response to tariffs, though it declined to say by how a lot.
MAC is uniquely well-positioned to capitalize, based on Taylor. She notes that sellers look like motivated of late. Buyers, fearing but greater markups to come back, are scrambling to snag offers now.
“We’re in a sweet spot,” she mentioned. “A lot of our sellers might be feeling some economic pressure, while our buyers are concerned prices will go up.”
Judy Taylor is the CEO of MAC, which simply opened a show room on W. 57th St. Tamara Beckwith
During the huge stock market sell-offs after Liberation Day on April 2, “there was a shock factor” when bag gross sales paused, Taylor mentioned. But it solely lasted “for a couple of days and then people were buying again.”
Before the pandemic, MAC’s average sale was $26,000; now, it’s $14,000. Smaller objects — like Hermès Picotin baggage for $3,600, Evelyne baggage for $3,750, and even wallets underneath $1,000 — are flying off the cabinets.
“We decided to go into smaller, lower-priced bags, and that’s driven more sales,” Taylor mentioned, including that these things are more and more arduous to seek out at Hermès shops.
Some baggage that clients sell to MAC nonetheless have personal notes inside the baggage from the earlier proprietor. Tamara Beckwith
As for MAC’s showroom, it’s positioned in a district the place smash-and-grab robberies terrorized posh Fifth Avenue boutiques during the pandemic – so security is tight. Prospective purchasers should undergo background checks, LinkedIn vetting and authorities ID verification.
Once upstairs and buzzed in by the thick glass doorways, purchasers nonetheless face surveillance cameras and associates are armed with bank-teller-style panic buttons.
The precautions aren’t deterring buyers. Since April, MAC’s two new showrooms in New York and Palm Beach have been totally booked, serving 15 personal appointments a week. Guests are pampered with Veuve Clicquot whereas they examine baggage they’ve pre-selected online – often round 5 during a given go to.
Neatly stacked containers of Hermès baggage in a temperature-controlled facility. Lisa Fickenscher/NY Post
Accessories are introduced in for purchasers from a close by facility that evokes an overgrown, lavishly stocked, walk-in closet on Park Avenue – albeit one which’s impeccably organized, well-lit and housed in an workplace building. Shelf after shelf of uncommon purses — many of them carrying five-figure price tags — lurk inside neatly arrayed containers in varied dimensions. The black containers comprise Chanel baggage and the orange, of course, are Hermès.
“Pre-owned Hermès Birkin 35 Argile Swift Gold Hardware,” learn the label on one massive, orange box turned on its facet, surrounded by dozens more. As of final week, the $16,000 merchandise was marked “out of stock” on MAC’s web site.
For the actually privileged, the expertise is seamless — however not everybody makes the cut.
“It’s a very high-net-worth clientele,” Taylor mentioned. “A lot of them work for investment banks, hedge funds, law firms — and they’re active in philanthropy.”
MAC’s warehouse is stuffed largely with Chanel, Hermès and Louis Vuitton baggage. Lisa Fickenscher/NY Post
Every handbag tells a story — typically actually.
When MAC acquires a bag, its authenticators often discover personal notes tucked inside: Valentine’s Day love letters, Mother’s Day notes, and birthday greetings. The most touching ones are memorialized on MAC’s kitchen fridge.
“Happy Birthday! May this bag go on many new adventures with you,” reads one observe. Another says merely, “To my dear friend and bestie.”
They’re reminders that whereas luxurious baggage could change arms, the sentiment — and the worth — endures.
And regardless of tariffs, crime fears, and a rollercoaster economic system, the ka-ching of Clarbour’s cellphone is proof: New York’s urge for food for luxurious is as insatiable as ever.
