Once upon a time, in another lifetime, a woman came into the boutique where I worked, clearly distraught. I asked her what was wrong, and she said that her friend got a Birkin bag before she did. She then proceeded to waste about two-and-a-half hours of my time, while trying on half the store and complaining (half-crying, I swear) about her friend and how unfair everything was. To me. A shopgirl who made, at that time, $13 an hour plus commission and did not even have health insurance. She left without buying anything, leaving a huge mess for me to clean in her wake.
And that, my friends, is exactly why that bitch didn’t get her Birkin.
The thing about Birkin bags — the forever it-bag from Hermès named for it-girl Jane Birkin — is that, for the most part, you can’t just walk into Hermès and buy one. Half the time they don’t even have one on the premises. Rather, it usually involves building a relationship with a Sales Assistant who, when one does come in, will call you up and offer you the opportunity to purchase it.
But not everyone is happy with that arrangement. Last week, Tina Cavalleri and Mark Glinoga of California filed a class action lawsuit against the fashion house on the grounds that the process for buying a Birkin bag (or a Kelly bag or a Constance bag) violates antitrust laws.
At issue is the fact that they supposedly have to buy a lot of “ancillary products” — clothing, scarves, home goods, $8,000 backgammon sets, etc. — they don’t want from Hermès in order to be offered the opportunity to buy what they do want, a Birkin. They say that this constitutes the “unlawful practice of tying,” because they would not have purchased these things otherwise or would have purchased them from other brands. “Tying” however, is usually only considered unlawful when the seller in question has “sufficient market power” in a particular area. For instance, if Hermès was the only brand in the world that sold luxury handbags, which it is not.
Here is an example of tying cited by the FTC:
The FTC challenged a drug maker that required patients to purchase its blood-monitoring services along with its medicine to treat schizophrenia. The drug maker was the only producer of the medicine, but there were many companies capable of providing blood-monitoring services to patients using the drug. The FTC claimed that tying the drug and the monitoring services together raised the price of that medical treatment and prevented independent providers from monitoring patients taking the drug. The drug maker settled the charges by agreeing not to prevent other companies from providing blood-monitoring services.
These seem like somewhat different situations. In one case, we are talking about medicine that people need to function, and in the other … we are talking about a fucking handbag.
Cavalleri says that she has spent tens of thousands of dollars at the store and “had been coerced into purchasing Ancillary Products in order to obtain access to Hermès Birkin bags.” She was ultimately offered the opportunity to buy one, but when she asked to buy another soon after, she was told that the bags went to “clients who have been consistent in supporting our business” and was tragically unable to buy a Birkin that year. Why she should get two while other people were waiting for their first is unclear.
Glinoga went into an Hermès store and asked to buy a Birkin, but was told he’d have to be a customer of the store in order to do that. The lawsuit said that “Plaintiff Glinoga made multiple attempts to purchase a Birkin bag, but was told on each occasion he needed to purchase other items and accessories. As a result, Plaintiff Glinoga was unable to purchase a Birkin Handbag.” Oh, the horror.
I have had to do some real soul-searching with this one. More than I thought I would at the outset. Because, as regular readers will know, I love an antitrust lawsuit. I want to break up all of the conglomerates into itty bitty pieces and bathe in antitrust lawsuits. Lord knows I have no sympathy for corporations. But the more I read through this particular antitrust lawsuit and the commentary on it, the more I found myself, oddly enough, kind of Team Hermès.
I think it was this particular comment on the Washington Post article on the lawsuit that sent me.
“I personally think Birkin bags are hideous and people who buy designer items covered in ridiculous logos need their head examined but this isn’t about me or for me but IF I wanted one and could afford one I should be able to buy one without having to suck up to Hermes sales goons by buying a bunch of other Hermes products first.”
Because you know what? The more I think about it, the more I actually love the idea of anyone who would call people just trying to earn a living “sales goons” having to kiss the ass of said “sales goons” in order to get their precious fancy handbag. That, to me, is just gorgeous. There is just something I find truly satisfying about the idea of the ultimate class signifier being something you actually can’t get without being nice to a retail worker and having respect for their time.
I have to tell you. I had some truly lovely customers, but the idea of denying one of the awful ones her precious fancy handbag makes my whole heart smile.
Is this petty? Yes, it is. Am I reading this lawsuit and just assuming that these customers were probably incredible, entitled assholes? I am, and I simply refuse to apologize for that. Not all of our baggage is Louis Vuitton.
The lawsuit claims that Hermès and 10 unknown people (referred to as Does 1-10) “knowingly and willfully acted in concert, conspired and agreed together among themselves, and entered into a combination and systemized campaign of activity, to inter alia damage Plaintiffs and the Class and to otherwise consciously and/or recklessly act in derogation of the rights of Plaintiffs and the Class, and the trust reposed by Plaintiffs and the Class in each of the Defendants, the acts being negligently and/or intentionally inflicted.”
(Again, we are talking about a fucking handbag here.)
It also states that because Sales Assistants don’t make commission on Birkins, they are less interested in selling Birkins than other products. The plaintiffs claim this is part of a nefarious plot to get them “to use Birkin handbags as a way to coerce consumers to purchase ancillary products sold by Defendants (for which the sales associates receive a 3% commission) in order to build-up the purchase history required to be offered a Birkin handbag.”
What it does not mention is that the Sales Assistants are not in charge of inventory or whether or not the store has a damn Birkin onsite to sell in the first place and that when they do get them in, they go pretty much immediately.
Sales Assistants may not make commission on the bags, but something like being the one to call up a customer who has been dying for one and offer them the opportunity is a hell of a way to build on a client relationship, which is going to get someone far more commission in the long run (for the whole store — Hermès actually pools commission to reduce competition between workers). Clienteling is hugely important in high end retail, where more sales come from regular clients than from random walk-in traffic.
Another thing the lawsuit ignores is that this is not an official policy and that there are stories all over the internet from people who got Birkins or Kellys (a similar purse, named for Grace Kelly) on their first or second try. If that is the case, then they can’t definitively say that buying the “ancillary items” is the only way to get one. It likely depends on a number of factors, the first being “do they even have one in the store that has not been set aside for another customer?”
The fact is, it is not possible for Hermès to make enough of these bags for everyone to get as many as they want, while keeping the same level of quality. The company requires the artisans who make them to go through at least five years of training before they are “qualified” to make a Birkin. They sew them by hand, not by machine, and that can take anywhere from 18-40 hours. This is not fast fashion and these people are paid appropriately for their talents, as they should be.
It makes sense to use the Birkin as a reward for customer loyalty, rather than on a first come first serve basis, particularly since it costs far less to buy a Birkin or a Kelly from an actual Hermès store than it does to buy one on the resale market — so, in a way, they’re basically offering their favorite customers free money. You can buy a basic Birkin in-store for $10,000 and immediately sell it for several thousand more than that, and that price will only increase in time. According to the lawsuit, Cavalleri’s pre-spend was more than some Birkins cost, but that is also part of why the resale value is so high. Hermès bags are really some of the only items in the world that become more expensive the minute you leave the store.
On that note … while the lawsuit makes a lot of the fact that Hermès is the only “authorized” seller of Birkins, anyone can go and buy one that has never even been used from a reseller right now, at this very moment. I have thought about buying one myself and then never touching it, simply because they are an extremely practical investment that can double in value in five years. These people also have that option!
The class of two people are asking for some amount of money to be determined later, to make up for purchases one of them made in hope of being offered the opportunity to buy a bag, and that Hermès be enjoined from continuing this practice.
Yet … part of the reason the desirability (and market price) of these bags has gone up in recent years is because of this practice. Because not everyone can get one. I sincerely doubt these people would really give two shits about these bags if everyone could. As much as I do consider fashion to be an art form just as worthy as any other, a big reason people spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on these bags is so that people in the know will look at them and say “Wow, that sure is a person who can spend a stupid amount of money on handbag! They must be special/important!”
If we were talking about something that people actually need to live and not just something they want because it is a status symbol and a wealth signifier, that would be one thing. We are not. We are talking about a freaking handbag that even I, the proud-yet-aware-that-I-should-be-mildly-concerned owner of approximately 87,000 mid-range designer handbags, understand that absolutely no one “needs.”
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