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When we see reports that unsold "luxury" goods are destroyed to ensure their exclusivity you realise how little their real value is.

"I'm told it's the highest quality, artisanal French plastic." This gets me every time 😂

“It costs a lot of money to look this cheap” - Dolly Parton

I‘m a trained dressmaker. I take pride in making clothes as high quality as possible down to the things you can’t see, like interlinings or seam allowances that allow altering. When I was still in training I took part in a project for a local fashion week event. All the visitors were covered head to toe in branded clothing, ran right past the dressmakers gilds section to the flashy stuff. Extra points for being a Chanel jacket look alike… It was eye opening, no one was there for high quality clothing and people who claimed to love fashion had no idea what real quality meant. They fall for clever marketing just like the rest of us.

The target market of "luxury" goods is poor people pretending to be far more affluent than they actually are, and it does not seem that the world will be running out of poor people anytime soon! The sale of luxury goods is definitely helping out in that regard.

It’s not a Patrick Boyle video without a well timed Kevin O’Leary snipe

It's such a scam. I remember in my previous company a new girl got her first bonus and bought a $5,000 Chanel bag. She was back to living paycheck to paycheck after that. She wore her bag everyday for a year and it got all ratty looking. I feel bad that she fell for that scam.

Speaking of trainers, fairly recently in the sneaker collecting world has been growing realisation that polyurethane foam does not actually hold to long-term storage, and a lot of very expensive sneakers are literally turning to dust, worthless.

"highest quality artisanal French plastic" it was worth getting out of bed to hear this ... whatever else happens today it is a bonus

I have an elderly friend who is a cobbler by training. I once walked with him through local high street and he started pointing out in the windows how badly made the luxury brand shoes were from a craftsman perspective. That was a fascinating perspective, albeit not a surprising one. He said he could make the best custom fit shoes I could ever hope to wear for less than half of the price of what was on display. Personally, in a way I'm grateful LV bags and such exist though. They tell me a lot about the people who carry them. Mostly to stay well clear...

I work at a mid-size law firm that has several lawyers who bill $1,000+ an hour. Those people don't wear Gucci and Louis Vuitton. They wear Land's End and Eddie Bauer. Whenever I see someone who's covered head to toe in designer shit, I just assume they've got a lot of credit card debt and that they're stupid.

“27% of luxury goods are bought by people making under $50k.” I remember going to a coach store with my gf in the early 00s and it was chaos - like pigs at a trough. It completely changed her opinion on the brand and luxury goods in general. the idea of “style shows status” was vaporized. The best test of luxury as status is go to a store yourself and observe the people shopping there. That’s what you’ll be associated with if you buy these things. Take that in and then make a buying decision

To quote my grandmother, "You can always spot the New Money because they are wearing absolutely all of it... often leveraging so that they can wear more than all of it."

My bag was made by an 85 year old leather worker at the top of his game. It will last the rest of my life and longer. The art on it is what I picked out along with the colors. Getting unique things made by craftspeople and paying them directly is where I put money I’m willing to spend on a luxury items. I paid him $200. Worth every penny to have something no one else has made just for me.

I think it is perfectly fine to indulge in luxuries so long as you can afford it. The problem is that most people cannot afford it.

Just loved the deadpan “..highest quality artisanal French plastic.” 😂

Fast fashion has increasingly made luxury brands even more desirable albeit the quality of the latter has declined as well. They’re playing us well.

To me, luxury goods always seemed a lot like a tax on narcissism. The main thing that needs to be corrected is that small creators need to be the producers, not the corporations. Probably the best wealth redistribution scheme out there.

As a watch collector, I genuinely hope the bubble bursts in the near future. A departure from the "speculative collecting" mindset would not only make watches more accessible but also make it safer to actually enjoy them

I long ago learned that the old rich were not flaunting it. They lived simply and quietly. They had no need to impress anyone. That’s real wealth. I’ve met many who you would never realize had such resources. They were content to know they had money without sharing that with others. The people that need to have everything in ‘style’ are poorer and insecure.

People like to point out the fact that the poor spend almost as much on luxuries as the rich, but they forget the fact that these stats only take into account a very specific category of luxury, mostly wearables. Poor people buy these things precisely because they are a cheap way to signal status. Rich people buy luxuries such as nicer cars and houses, which cannot be measured by these sorts of statistics.

I think the demand for luxury goods in young people is driven by Instagram and tik tok influencers.

One other reason for the spike in luxury goods sales during the pandemic may have been the the restrictions on travel which led to big savings on airfares etc. which many used to treat themselves to expensive personal items. As travel resumes, luxury sales may accordingly fall

As a Gen X’er, I’ve bought lots of luxury goods for decades; Marc Jacobs collections and Ghesquière trunk bags for LV, Tom Ford for Gucci, Donna Karen when she ran her label herself, Escada, Prada, Chanel, Louboutin, Patek Philippe etc but since my last purchase in 2021, I’ve been turned off by everyone buying luxury like it’s H&M and everything being called luxury even when it’s plastic. I never bought items to sell or to store. I’ve always bought because I loved the item, it was unique and limited. Now we’re spending that money on home renovations and travel. PS. Most luxury items do not appreciate and never pay credit card interest on a lux item. If you have to pay for it in installments, you can’t afford it unless it’s a “same as cash” term.

I HATE wearing clothes with logos or a name all over it . Glad i never fell in that trap 😂

Thanks for the great straight to the point hilarious content and for not using clickbait titles. I know this is just pennies for you but it's a token of appreciation. I wish there were more creators like you.

Luxury goods have transformed themselves from targeting the elite few to targeting the masses and even younger Gen Z. You can see a lot of the brands like Chanel now target audience as young as high schoolers and sponsoring a lot of K Pop idols, who these kids worship as role models. Many people especially the younger generation equates spending money on buying luxury items as attaining happiness which triumphs anything else. As society become more and more nihilistic and hedonistic, consumerism especially in the luxury segment will thrive.

Just to add more context to this in terms of fashion history, LVMH began this model of big budget shows and a lot of PR attention to drive the mid-masses to buy a luxury bag of shoes in the 90s, you also said this in the video. But this was done with McQueen and Galliano in the 90s because they were the ones that made the most electric shows and became celebrities in themselves specifically for their theatricality. However, esp for Galliano, their design literally didnt matter to Arnault because they didnt need to be sold if the bags and shoes were selling (which they were). However, as this model that once was novel became the norm across the industry, too many of those entry point products like keepalls were sold and they got far too diluted, their luxury, unattainable image was tarnished. The brands started to just raise the price faster than inflation to beat that, but still, because they lost their exclusivity, they lost their desirability. This is the start of the fall of that retailing trend with brands like Hermes and Chanel trying to create a new higher luxury thats harder to actually obtain, things like Chanel shoes and Hermes bags are notoriously difficult to get, turning them into a new higher luxury that targets the top 10% of client that accounts for the lions share of sales. Thats the shift thats happening from inside the industry and why it seems like its bursting. The LVMH bubble will, but luxury wont Also, you talked about Burberry being a victim of this and it kind of was, but not really in the way you said. The problem was that Burberry had licensed the check out to companies in Spain and Japan before the burberry check was popular. Then, following a window display that took the customer attention it got popular with their very small customer base. It was then turned into bags and umbrellas etc by mainline burberry without them anticipating their licensees would copy that idea for their own products. The licensees produced too much of the check, it got everywhere, heavily faked and burberry couldnt get out of the licensing agreements and it hurt their brand. The reason this ties into the LVMH model is because without that the general public simply wouldnt have been interested enough in luxury for it to become a motif, which in turn saw it adopted by what-we-then-called chavs who wore the check in football brawls and on holiday in europe which gave both brits and the brand a bad reputation. It ties in, its just from an older business model which was popular in the 70s/80s, whereas the LVMH model is from the 90s Hope I helped to add context, your video was really great 💕🙌🥰

My ex-wife 2007-11 was OBSESSED with luxury goods, and coerced me into spending shameful amounts. I get far more compliments than she ever did with thrift store finds (usually from the women's section) that i tailor and customize myself into a distinctive masculine style.

No, Patrick, you didn't inspire me to buy a 100-year-old camera. But, you did inspire me to up my game in dry wit. You're a master! Love this show!

Luxury goods market is no longer luxury. The real luxury market has shifted, and now we have a very mid tier product bubble with excessive prices under a guise of pseudo exclusivity. It’s pathetic, gaudy, and sad

Since I was young, my parents gave me straight up cash instead of straight up buying the things I wanted. That made me extremely aware of the cost of things. Seeing a 'Branded' Black T-Shirt being 20 times as expensive as a normal Black T-Shirt turned my world upside down.

Luxury isn’t about quality it’s about exclusivity. People are paying more so that they can have a product that less people can afford which makes them feel special. China's youth unemployment being ~30% will hit the sector hard as they'll lack disposable income to spend on such items. "The basic idea is that if you only focus on very rich people, you have no market." - Vincent Bastien, former LVMH CEO from 1987 to 1995. I've paraphrased it but it sill applies.

The inclusion of watches really hit home for me. It was like explaining international finance to kids by talking about chocolate.

I think you forgot to address one point. You can now pay in instalments. Social media ‘influences’ have been saying ‘if you buy a Chanel and use it a 100 times, you’ve only paid $3 per day’ lol

I’ve known people who convinced themselves that silly luxury items were investments. Not once have I known it to work out well.

Who buys a 1150$ candle? Do they buy it just to show people that they can burn one grand?

Honestly I'm not shocked by young people buying / flipping these things, or hoping they'll be an investment. When it feels like the economy is stacked against you, there's always a temptation to figure out a workaround, something to gamify that other people aren't taking a chance on. It may also feel like a small chance, buying a luxury item, selling it next year, etc. Though clearly not actually good investments in the long run, there's definitely a temptation to think "well next year I can flip this for double," and not even think about the long run. Even knowing you can "just" make your money back makes it feel like it's worth the risk. Think about how many people got into cryto. Not because they believed in or understood it, generally, but because they felt the need to gamble if they were going to ever get ahead in this economy. Take a risk - because that's all you've got! Etc.

Social class anxiety is a real thing. I wasted a lot of money before realizing it had happened to myself.

If I were rich, I would have everything taylor-made for me, especially shoes but also clothes and furniture. For me the idea of real luxury is having a competent craftsman manufacture something that is perfectly adapted to my body and wishes. Going around with a bag/shirt/watch with a clownishly big logo to impress acquaintances seems to me like the childish thing to do.

So, buy LVMH stock, not LVMH products ! Buying luxury goods when you still have a loan to pay back, what is in people's heads ?

I’ve noticed there are basically 2 kinds of clothing stores at a major international mall now: - fast fashion (Zara, H&M, Uniqlo) - luxury (Gucci, LV, Prada) It’s a weird experience choosing between buying a single item from Gucci (that’s not even THAT well made) vs buying 2 bags worth of fast fashion at H&M that will all start falling apart in a few months

As a teen when I read Cosmopolitan there would be articles every few months on how and why to save up for an “investment piece” handbag. Simpler times.

I feel like it's bursting. The class levels have changed. Six figs has become the new middle class where 30 yrs ago it was considered more upper class. Now even at 6figs it's hard to survive let alone have enough money left over to spend on yourself. People are starting to pay more attention to the growing prices of items (necessities) due to social media. While Luxury is becoming less essential specially when you have online stores providing more affordable items.

To be honest the people I really envy are the people who retire early to spend their life somewhere warm and sunny by the sea. That is really living! 😎🏝️

Thanks for the reminder that the common people can still be convinced to do idiotic things like buying normal plain white tshirts with red logos for 100x the manufacturing price. And folks, theres a difference between 'investing' and 'speculating.'

Hopefully there will come a point at which people will realize that something isn't necessarily worth having just because it's got a stupidly high price tag on it, and people will spend their money more wisely rather than giving it to those who need it the least in exchange for items which cost less to produce than their cheapest competitor.

What’s interesting is the demand for luxury goods is so big that many designer brand companies actually have a tiered system for their luxury products. For example, Polo Ralph Lauren has 2 tiers for their luxury goods: there’s the Polo by Ralph Lauren which is what most people know (polo shirts with the emblem on them), and then there’s Purple Label by Ralph Lauren which represents finer luxury. Many other luxury clothing brands have “sub-brands” which are much more fiscally digestible for the average consumer (McQ for Alexander McQueen, Pierre Balmain for Balmain, MICHAEL for Michael Kors, etc.) Similarly, while Mercedes Benz is a luxury car company, the base C-class Mercedes models have a similar price tag to more average-priced cars (~$40k), while their AMG line has a much steeper asking price, usually doubling or tripling the C model’s price tag. It’s interesting to see that, although many of these companies represent luxury, a majority of their product base is made and marketed for a much more general consumer base.

People who pretend to be wealth why the Kevin O'Leary photo😂

A friend worked for a top top lux brand and own the stuff because she said the employee discount was 90% off.

There's too much of it now. I've seen more LV over the past five years than I have in my entire life before then. What used to drive the value was the fact that it was something you couldn't get anywhere. Now London, Tokyo, and New York each have ten places to buy the right brands that not too long ago were only available in ten places all across the entire planet. And Rolex has been over-producing for a very long time. Their production numbers are at around 600,00 units per year every year. And I know people in the pawn shop business. They used to pay high for the right luxury brands, but when it kept coming and coming, the used-goods prices have dropped considerably. Mercedes, Bentley, and BMW sell for a lot, but the depreciation is so vicious that what they re-sell for is pathetic to where the only time they'll ever have value is when they're now. LV, Chanel, and many other luxury brands are in danger of ending up in the same "expensive new but not worth a lot used" category as most luxury cars are in.

I have noticed that in wealthy neighborhoods there are always Costcos.

Here in Switzerland it's the construction workers, mechanics, hotel maids and etc.. the biggest "clientele" of the Gucci and Louis Vitton stores. We call them the "Faux riches" , the fake rich people.

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Luxury brands don't target rich people, they target people who want to look rich.

Also, Walmart is reporting a rise in ”higher income“ customers. That sure isn’t a sign of an economy that feels like spending.

I got the urge to buy finance textbooks by watching your videos

That elon pic 🤣🤣🤣. Even funnier when Patrick uses it

As long as people are gullible enough to be drawn into the trap of designer brands in the belief that it will make your life so much more amazing, people like Bernard Arnault will just keep getting richer. We're spending so much effort targeting diesel cars and yet the fashion industry- one of the biggest environmental problems- barely seems to get a mention.

This puts me in mind of the concepts put down by Veblen in his ‘Theory of the Leisure Class’. I seem to remember that the noveau riche would appropriate items that were identified with the old guard upper class and that this group in term would change its tastes.

I actually just went to check because I have a good amount of booze that I bought pre-pandemic and never used. A bottle that I had to have bought for 80-150 is now $1300+ on the market.. time to sell I guess!

The business model for "Luxury goods" will always be to dilute the supply of "total" products over time, and hence the limited quota of "Prestige and luxury" attached to them. The "Market cap" for these goods (Sometimes considered assets) are a glass floor, with no support, and having never been actually tested, as there isn't ever going to be selling pressure from the purchaser thus far. This phenomenon is another manifestation of the "Greater fool" theory that will become increasingly apparent in coming times, with the current scenarios present in other areas of "Scarcity and prestige," such as Magic the Gathering cards, and CounterStrike: Global offensive items. There is near zero liquidity for resell relative to the number of holders / items.

Social media ruined luxury brands for me because it was always the trashiest people wearing them in their posts. I’m all for quality quiet luxury and have been since before the “new craze”.

There will always be people that want to live "above" others and people who want to portray it. Conversely, as people are being affected by the current economy, they are seemingly becoming minimalist. There really isn't a reason to purchase high-priced items as they mean really nothing after you purchase them. Thank you for you content sir.

A 1k candle shook me to the core

My friends, who I know for a fact make the least amount of money, bought the most luxury goods. I bought a Longines for $2000 and was ridiculed. I make 180k dollars a year (converted from euros), and my friend who bought a double as expensive Rolex, is making 50k a year at most. People are buying things way outside of their league. Same thing with restaurant visits. We were invited to join friends for dinner at a restaurant. Ended up paying $220 a head for a, honeslty, mediocre quality meal at a hyped restaurant. For us this is marginal compared to our family income. The people that invited us, who go regurlarly, actually got government support to pay their energy bill. Yet they visit the luxury restaurant more than us. its crazy

I started buying Louis Vuitton in the early 80’s. At that time, repairs and refurbishment was free, clients were treated like welcome guests. My LV bags, wallets and luggage were workhorses. 6 years ago, I had a broken strap on an LV bag, and took it in to an LV boutique for repair. I was told it would cost me $250 for a strap repair. Whaaaat?! I bought LV because it was elegant and impeccable workmanship. It was known for lasting a lifetime, or longer. People willed their LV to their heirs! Oish! Further, they wanted the original sales receipt from a tote purchased 30 years prior! Hard pass. I’ve sold all but 2 pieces out of over 30. I will never buy Gucci, LV, or other ‘luxury’ brands unless second hand. I was talking to a perfume executive who said LV, Gucci, Cartier etc make more on their fragrance lines than on their hard goods. I have plenty of my own style. I don’t need a mega-brand initials on anything I own. And let’s not get into the idiocy of a $30K-$40k office worker buying a $5000 purse! Better investment to drop $5K in the gold or platinum market.

If my kids were living in my basement and were buying luxury purses etc, they would be no longer living in my basement.. lol

"Millenials and younger generations " like we aren't in our thirties and forties and the majority of the work force. People using it as shorthand for relatively young is going to be a thing until we're in our sixties.

I remember the Coach faze in the early aughts. To this day, my eye is drawn to fancy brand name purses and wallets, even though I literally don’t style myself in a way those purses would ever work. Thankfully I don’t have the funds to justify getting those purses, which has led me to understanding how much of a scam they are for the lower and even middle classes.

The "chav" thing also happened in Australia, with ratboys wearing: Louis Vitton, Ralph Lauren, Nautica. They're seen as cheap/tacky as a result.

I never really put it together till you mentioned it. But yes, I no longer think 'they're wealthy' when I see someone with a luxury purse or car. I saw a guy driving a pristine high-end Acura from the early 2000's and thought 'he must be really good with money' because to keep a car running in pristine shape like that takes money and more than that, it takes being GOOD with money. I mean even the paint was perfect, headlights perfect, thing purred like a kitten. In the same parking lot I saw a woman get out of a new G wagon and she was high as hell on meth and looked like she would shiv you for a fiver. Feel bad for Gen Z tho, they've been manipulated so hard by these giant corporations they're slaves now. Maybe Gen Alpha will reject it but who knows.

I knew it, the camera was never my fault. Damn you Boyle

I worked at a liquor store throughout 2023 and finally quit recently. The amount of people who were buying Veuve cliquot, clase azul and other frankly overpriced luxury liquors that you'd see influencers spray at each other at the club who would then have to transfer money to their cashapp was absurd. The quality - cost ratio of wine falls off after like $40 for wine and like $60 for most spirits. After that you're just paying for the brand.

Interested in how ‘luxury goods’ are being defined at the low end. E.g. a lot of bank is made by ‘luxury’ brands by producing lower-end goods like belts, hats, bags (E.g. the Burberry hat phenomenon in the UK in early 2000s) that are lower quality, higher volume but still confer status on the buyer for a lower cost.

As long as social media continue to prevail, the luxury goods market will continue to go up.... Decades ago, only ppl from the upper ranks of society spends money on luxury stuffs, the common folks don’t have the pressure to own things that they shouldn’t be owning..... But, these days, everyone is trying to get their hands on branded goods... At where I live, I’ve seen tonnes of ppl working minimum wage jobs who can’t afford Chanel bags buying Chanel lipstick, and they actually think that drug store brand lipsticks like Revlon/L’Oréal are garbage.... I’ve also seen nurses using their savings to buy Chanel handbags, I respect nurses for the contribution that they’ve made to the society, but we all know very few nurses get paid a lot for salaries.....and if they can’t get their hands on a real Chanel bag, they’ll buy the fake ones, but at the same time they’ll save every penny so that they’ll be able to afford one later on.... I’ve seen middle class ppl buying Rolex/Chanel bags thinking that the value will go up and they believe they could enjoy wearing the goods on special occasion and later on sell it for a higher price, or, they could pass it down as inheritance to their children.... Sometimes I do think I’m losing out, coz I own very few luxury items, mostly coz I can’t afford it, and mostly coz I feel the extra money should be put into the stock market/funds...

To add about conspicuous consumption: Its what drives certain digital economies. Certain online games give out unique items as rewards, and these are often sold for real world money. Most of the time they sell only for a few dollars, but there are recorded cases of people paying a couple grand for something like a unique paint job on a digital gun. There are cases of people who were offerred even more but simply refused because they thought it unethical

The only place I buy my luxury goods from is Aldi.

Stealth wealth is the way

A few lesser known luxury brands for high utility items can sometimes be worth it when they are long lasting. Tumi bags will often end up being cheaper in the long term if you need to use them regularly, and they aren’t well known enough for you to be paying much extra for the label

How is someone thats earns 40k a year buying a 4k bag or 2k slippers?

Patrick your videos are always so informative. Thank you and the best of luck going forward.

Most luxury goods are a waste of money. It’s really a shame so many low and middle class people are wasting the limited resources they have on status symbols.

Back in 2015, still at University, I opened an Ebay shop to buy and sell exclusive sneakers. That was the last year with small or no competition for raffles. By 2018 the market was full of bots creating thousands of accounts bidding up every ticket for a pair of yeezy, off white or others. Made good money between 2015-2018, after that it was almost impossible. Brands realized the power of re-launching popular models and they started releasing more and more restocks, killing most of the resale market. Tough business, but if you currently hold some yeezys, keep them, they will be x5 its current value in 10 years

“Crypto Bros are no longer buying high spec corollas.” 😂 Sir, you killed it!

Keep up the good work! Enjoy watching your videos which is always relevant and informative!

The only luxury products I've bought are perfumes. Once I fell in love with the fragrance it was hard for me to replace it with a cheaper alternative. I'm glad I never branched out from there.

China is the real problem for the luxury good sector. Youth unemployment in China 30% will hit luxury spending massively. Problem with inverted Demand curves is that when prices start falling it becomes a vicious spiral.

I aspire someday to be able to afford a "high spec Corolla".

11:42 "spend to impress" and "no one really notices". Sums its up so precisely.

Great video. For the beginning question: how to define luxury. I found the book "The Luxury Strategy" by Kapferer and Bastien interesting. They distinguish between "normal" products, premium and super-premium and finally true luxury products. premium and super-premium, according to them, still add value in a functional sense, even if their prices rise faster per value added. Luxury products however do not add genuine functional value, instead it is more about abstract nonsense like "beauty" and "artisticallity" with which they justify their prices. Examples from the book: BMW, Mercedes = Super-premium. Rolls Royce, Koenigsegg = Luxury.

I have a classic car worth ~£15k, I drive it and enjoy it. Spent about £3k on parts and insurance (if I was paying for labour it'd be more like 6k). It's a hobby and has a cost, I can't imagine it being an "investment" just parked in a garage that'd be so sad :(

I think as far as luxury leather goods go, the lower tier vendors like Coach, MK etc. are really slowing down, but the higher end vendors like Chanel and Hermes are still selling their $6,000+ bags just fine.

Love your eloquent & cohesive commentary (and humor) Thanks!

many people also get addicted to shopping luxury goods. I know a guy who did one of those shady one week med trials for a shitton of money (and a bunch of side effects) just to pay for his credit card debt that he uses for high brand fashion. At the same time he rents an extremely tiny place where he shares common spaces with like 8 other people. I know myself that even though I budget a lot, sometimes when I get anxiety because of how claustrophobic it can feel to have a strict budget where something unexpected happening can scramble things up, I end up relieving that stress by buying a book (which is my own go to instinctive spend). It's a result for the uncertain times we live in I think than nothing else, people look for distractions everywhere.

I sold my Rolex last fall. I got paid to wear it for 5 years. I’ll grab another one next year when the authorized dealers are giving discounts on them again.

I've worked for some of the wealthiest people in my country and the most remarkable thing about nearly all of them was that they were dumb as a door knob. They inherited all their money and maintained and increased it through managed investment funds and financial advisors. They bought the most expensive version of everything and just assumed it was the best because of it and all thought they were better than everyone else just because they had wealth, even though they did nothing to earn it. I have nothing but the highest admiration for people who make their living by parting these fools from their money.

Luxury goods don’t even guarantee you good quality, a lot of these fashion houses use polyester! I’m not paying $800 for polyester, you’re out of your mind

Interesting statistics, as always. Thanks, Patrick!