GTWJ ESSAY • AUGUST 25, 2026

Is It Really an Investment or Do You Just Want It?

Why do we need to financially justify the things we simply want to buy?

Sometimes an expensive purchase is genuinely an investment. Sometimes it simply has resale value. And sometimes it is just something beautiful you wanted badly enough to buy.

There is a sentence I hear constantly in conversations about luxury purchases: “It is an investment.” A handbag is an investment. A watch is an investment. Jewelry is an investment. A coat is an investment. And the higher the price becomes, the more urgently the purchase seems to need a financial explanation. Increasingly, I see people comparing buying certain handbags to buying property, particularly when the conversation turns to Birkins. The comparison usually follows the same logic: the retail price rises, the secondary market can be strong, certain combinations are scarce, and therefore buying the bag is presented almost as though it belongs in the same category as buying a house. Every time I hear that conversation, I find myself wondering what exactly we are trying to prove. Are we genuinely making an investment decision? Or are we sometimes using the language of investing because saying “I spent a lot of money on this because I really wanted it” feels less respectable?

This is not an argument against Birkins, luxury handbags or expensive fashion.

I love beautiful bags. I buy them. The question is not whether luxury is worth enjoying. The question is why pleasure seems to require a financial defense once the price becomes high enough.

To be completely clear, I understand the attraction. I love beautiful bags. I understand the pleasure of seeing something you have wanted for a long time, deciding to buy it, bringing it home and enjoying it both inside your closet and in your actual life. There is nothing about this essay that is trying to convince anyone that a Birkin, or any other luxury purchase, is frivolous simply because it is expensive. Quite the opposite. What interests me is why we sometimes become uncomfortable admitting that pleasure itself was part of the reason we spent the money. The purchase suddenly has to become an “investment.” We begin discussing future price increases, resale percentages, rarity and what the piece may be worth in ten years, almost as though saying I loved it, I could comfortably afford it and I wanted it would somehow make the decision intellectually weaker.

A Birkin does not become less wonderful because you admit that you bought it because you wanted a Birkin.

The First Distinction

What actually makes something an investment?

In the strict financial sense, an investment is acquired with the expectation of generating a return, preserving capital or increasing in value over time. If someone buys a collectible handbag specifically because they understand the secondary market, acquisition price, selling fees, condition requirements, scarcity, liquidity and expected resale — and they are genuinely prepared to sell the object in order to realize that return — then it is perfectly reasonable to discuss the purchase as an alternative or collectible investment. But that is very different from buying the bag you have wanted for three years, carrying it regularly, planning to keep it forever and then saying, “Well, at least it is an investment.”

RESALE VALUE ≠ INVESTMENT VALUE

Something having resale value does not automatically make buying it an investment.

This distinction matters because resale value and investment intent are not the same thing. A car can have resale value. Furniture can have resale value. Jewelry can have resale value. Clothes can have resale value. A handbag can retain a significant percentage of its original price or even trade above retail in certain conditions, and that can absolutely matter when deciding whether the purchase feels comfortable. But an object having a future market price does not automatically transform every owner into an investor. Resale value is a characteristic of the object. Investment intent is a reason for acquiring it. The difference seems small, but it changes the entire conversation.

Resale value is a characteristic of the object.
Investment intent is a reason for acquiring it.

The Birkin and the House

Similar language does not make them the same asset.

A house and a Birkin can both have monetary value, and both can theoretically appreciate. That does not make them economically equivalent. Property exists inside a very different system of financing, taxation, utility, maintenance, liquidity and potential income generation. A house may produce rental income. It may be financed. It may be lived in. Its value depends on an entirely different market structure. A handbag is a collectible consumer object whose secondary-market price may depend on model, size, leather, color, hardware, condition, provenance, scarcity, demand and selling channel. Both can be valuable. Both can even appreciate. But saying that one behaves like the other because both have increased in price can flatten enormous differences.

You do not need to turn your Birkin into a tiny studio apartment before you are allowed to enjoy buying it.

The Numbers People Often Mix Together

Four Different Prices

This becomes especially important when resale prices are used to justify a purchase. Seeing a bag listed for a certain amount online is not the same thing as knowing that somebody actually bought it for that amount. And even if it sells at a high price, the seller may not receive that entire figure after commissions, authentication charges, shipping, insurance or other costs. Then there is timing. How quickly can the item actually be sold? What condition must it remain in? Will the market still value that specific combination when you eventually decide to sell? These are normal investment questions. They are rarely the questions someone asks when they are primarily buying the bag because they adore it.

And if you were never planning to sell it, the theoretical resale number never actually funded anything.

When Investment Language Changes How We Use Things

The bag you are suddenly afraid to carry.

There is another strange consequence to categorizing an object primarily as an investment. Every mark starts feeling financially meaningful. Do not take it in the rain. Do not place it on the floor. Do not travel with it. Do not carry it too often. Do not let the corners rub. Do not use it somewhere crowded. Suddenly the logic of preserving future resale value begins fighting the reason you wanted the object in the first place. Of course beautiful things deserve care. I am not suggesting treating expensive pieces recklessly. But there is a difference between taking care of something you love and being frightened to use it because somewhere in your imagination there is already a future buyer you are trying to please.

If protecting the resale value prevents you from enjoying the thing,
what exactly did you buy it for?

But I think the more interesting part of this conversation is not resale markets at all. It is why we seem to need an excuse. We say the bag is an investment. We say we will have it forever. We say the price will probably increase. We say we can pass it down. We calculate cost per wear. We talk about craftsmanship, future value and timelessness. Sometimes all of those things are genuinely important. But sometimes they are permission slips. They make an emotionally desirable purchase sound economically disciplined. We are more comfortable saying “the resale value is excellent” than saying “I really wanted this bag and spending the money on it made sense to me.”

The Question Beneath the Question

Why does an expensive purchase need a defense?

None of this means price is irrelevant. The more expensive a purchase becomes, the more important it is to understand whether it fits comfortably within your financial reality. If buying something compromises your ability to meet obligations, maintain savings, handle emergencies or fund priorities that matter more to you, calling the object an investment does not magically make the purchase financially sensible. But if the purchase is genuinely affordable within your circumstances, then affordability does not require moral justification. You can buy a €100 bag because you love it. You can buy a €1,000 bag because you love it. You can buy a €10,000 bag because you love it. The rising price changes the level of financial consideration required. It does not require an increasingly elaborate philosophical excuse.

The increasing price changes the financial consideration required.
It does not require an increasingly elaborate excuse.

The GTWJ Distinction

Three Completely Different Purchases

A Simple Thought Experiment

Would You Buy It if the Resale Value Were Zero?

If the answer is yes, perhaps you primarily wanted the object. That is useful to know. If the answer is no, then resale value may genuinely be a meaningful part of the value proposition for you. That is useful to know too. Neither answer makes someone more sophisticated or less sophisticated. The test simply removes one layer of justification and reveals what part of the purchase actually matters to you.

Perhaps the Most Important Part

You are allowed to buy things because you love them.

Fashion does not need to outperform the stock market to justify existing.

Not everything we spend money on needs to return more money to us. A beautiful bag may return pleasure. A coat may return warmth, confidence and years of wear. Jewelry may return memory. A pair of shoes may return the simple pleasure of getting dressed. A collectible piece may return the satisfaction of owning something you have admired for years. Fashion has emotional, aesthetic, cultural and experiential value. Those are not financial returns, and we should not confuse them with financial returns. But the fact that they cannot be measured on a balance sheet does not mean they are meaningless.

Some things return money.
Some return convenience.
Some return beauty.
Some return pleasure.

They are different kinds of value.

I actually think there is something liberating about removing the need to disguise pleasure as prudence. If you genuinely invest in collectible fashion, invest thoughtfully. Understand the numbers. Understand the risks. Understand how and when you would sell. If resale value simply makes you more comfortable with a purchase, acknowledge that too. There is nothing irrational about preferring an expensive object that may retain meaningful value over one that probably will not. But if the real answer is simply, “I have wanted this for years, I can afford it, I think it is beautiful and I am going to enjoy carrying it,” perhaps that sentence does not need improving.

Maybe we can remove the courtroom entirely.
The purchase does not always need a prosecution and a defense.

Maybe the next time we want something expensive, the questions can become much simpler. Can I genuinely afford this? Does buying it interfere with something more important to me? Do I understand what I am paying for? Do I still want it? If the answers make sense, perhaps that is enough. If you are truly buying a handbag as an investment, treat it like one. If resale value is simply reassuring, say that. And if you are buying the bag because you have wanted it for three years, you think it is beautiful and carrying it is going to make you ridiculously happy, you can say that too.

Final Thought

Sometimes a bag is not a tiny house
sitting on a shelf in your closet.

Sometimes it is just a very expensive bag
you really wanted.

And provided you could genuinely afford it,
perhaps that was reason enough.

GTWJ • FASHION, IDENTITY & CULTURE