What Makes a Bag Worth One Million Dollars?

Pharrell’s Louis Vuitton debut was a fashion feast for the eyes; but between all of the fame-filled mayhem on Paris’ Point Neuf Bridge that June evening, many onlookers were focused on one thing: the Millionaire Speedy Bag. It’s Pharrell’s luxurious reimagination of the formerly entry-level Speedy silhouette, done in the way that “a Canal Street counterfeiter might” (with blatant logos, a memorable shape and unapologetic references) but with the plushiest leather there is. Not long after, Rihanna appeared holding the bag in the designer’s first campaign for Louis Vuitton Men’s; and in the subsequent months, only a handful of notables were granted access to the elusive accessory — for the colossal cost of $1,000,000 USD, on a strongly-secured website that the public only knows about thanks to Los Angeles Clippers power forward P.J. Tucker’s Instagram.

The Millionaire Speedy Bag is a cultural and historical marker of Pharrell’s debut at the helm of Louis Vuitton, and it’s the pinnacle of exorbitant luxury in the modern-day, but what makes the arm candy worth its gargantuan, seven-figure price tag?

Putting the accessory’s cultural relevance aside, here’s what that top dollar offers: the Millionaire Speedy features a flipped white monogram with matching tan accents, as well as a pavé-set diamond “LV” pendant and yellow-gold hardware on its rivets, buckles and chunky Cuban links. The bag, available in five colorways, including “Rogue,” “Vert,” “Marron,” “Bleu” and “Jaune,” is handmade with crocodile leather, the most expensive exotic animal skin on the luxury market (and the reason that PETA invited Pharrell on a less-than-luxurious tour of a deadly crocodile farm earlier this year).

Louis Vuitton

Charles Gross, the 28-year-old fashion TikToker renowned for his palatial bag collection and expertise on high-end designer items, says the material earns the lofty cost because it’s “the hardest to tan into different colors.” He adds, “Companies state that it’s harder to achieve certain finishes, like shiny or matte, on crocodile leather. It’s also much more difficult to secure hides of the correct size that do not have defects, and it’s much harder to take care of in the long run.” Along with the leather’s specific composition, the material’s positioning among its competitors plays a distinct role in its commercial supremacy — at Prada’s stores, for instance, the only Galleria bag stored inside a glass case is the crocodile leather edition.

Still, $1,000,000 USD is far from what the Louis Vuitton bag’s materials are worth. To draw a comparison, the Hermès Birkin, one of the most-coveted bags on the luxury market that’s typically made from crocodile, alligator, ostrich and lizard skins, goes for anywhere between $10,400 USD and $2,000,000 USD, depending on the design’s color, size, material, date stamp and condition. “In a vacuum removed of all branding, and considering the materials chosen, the time a craftsman spends making the bag, the tanning processes and the dying processes, I would estimate that [a Birkin] actually costs somewhere between $800 USD and $950 USD to produce,” said Gross, who has spoken to several independent artisans that use the same design methods and materials as Hermès.

It’s safe to assume that the price of Louis Vuitton’s crocodile leather falls in a similar ballpark — and even if you add in the diamonds and the gold details, the final tally still lands remarkably distant from the Millionaire’s mammoth price point. So, the real question here is: what impact do status and exclusivity have on the cost of a high-end accessory?

“At a point, you have some of the wealthiest people in the world on their knees holding other products they never wanted and begging for bags. I think that’s a unique position for a brand to be in.” —Charles Gross

Luxury collectors are notoriously determined in their quests to (literally and figuratively) secure the bag; and oftentimes, when wealthy shoppers are barred from purchasing an exclusive item, their hunger for the prize only intensifies. Hermès has capitalized on this exuberantly rich mindset by only offering its highest-end creations to its most loyal customers — and the lengths to which its Birkin-brained shoppers will go are downright ludicrous.

“I recently met someone who bought the Hermès dog tent, and they don’t have a dog,” says Gross. “They bought it on a ‘Birkin date’, as I call it.” Hermès hopefuls will cash in on six figures worth of jewelry, home goods, blankets, watches, ready-to-wear and, apparently, dog tents, all in the hopes of receiving the call for the bag of their dreams. “At a point, you have some of the wealthiest people in the world on their knees holding other products they never wanted and begging for bags,” says Gross. “I think that’s a unique position for a brand to be in.”

In the case of Louis Vuitton, even the richest of clients may never be able to get their hands on the Millionaire Speedy Bag, as access to its “for internal use only” webpage is seemingly only granted to those who can earn the stamp from Pharrell. The brand is also not particularly known for forcing consumers to build a vigorous sales history in exchange for its top-shelf items. “At Louis Vuitton, I’ve found that, even for the most rare and exclusive pieces, they will make it happen, if you ask,” affirms Gross. However, the Millionaire Speedy Bag’s highly-limited availability signals the brand’s move toward a strategy that’s much more similar to that of Hermès, leading some big-ticketed shoppers to question whether or not they would actually buy the thing.

Jacopo Raule/Getty Images

When it comes to making a purchase decision, luxury collectors consider several factors. Of course, the initial subjective elements — the color, the material, the size — will need to evoke a confident “yes” in response to Marie Kondo’s famous question: does this spark joy? But beyond that, high spenders have several other costs and benefits to evaluate: most notably, whether or not the bag has longevity and value.

The former factor refers to the bag’s shelf-life in the House’s ateliers, where adjustments and repairs might need to be made down the line. “Many companies release bags at breakneck speeds, and many of the styles they come out with are very quickly discontinued or replaced,” says Gross, noting that he was in a Prada store recently and saw around “15 different variants” of the brand’s Galleria bag on display. “If I were to buy the bag now, in the holiday season, would they be able to repair or replace it in a year, if it breaks?”

Value, meanwhile, is more difficult to predict, as newer bags don’t possess a track record for retaining or outgrowing their original prices, and the secondary luxury market continues to fluctuate in response to larger economic ebbs and flows. In some cases, even the most eulogized releases can fall short of their expected resale numbers, regardless of the certainty surrounding their long-term value at launch. “I purchased one of the Karl Lagerfeld Louis Vuitton bags in 2014,” says Gross. “It looked like a punching bag, and I thought, ‘This will surely be so valuable in the future because it’s Karl Lagerfeld for Louis Vuitton. It’s so novel.’ Well, no one wanted it. I couldn’t give it away.”

“This particular bag is a cultural piece, but I think the consumer can get just as much value from looking at it in a museum, or in the store, where they can see a photo of Rihanna carrying it, than they could from actually owning it.” —Charles Gross

Today, the value of the Millionaire Speedy Bag is in the voices that talk about it — be those of Pharrell or Rihanna — and it’s particularly profound for ardent fashion fans who can recognize its place in Pharrell’s history at Louis Vuitton, no matter how his tenure unfolds. “This particular bag is a cultural piece, but I think the consumer can get just as much value from looking at it in a museum, or in the store, where they can see a photo of Rihanna carrying it, than they could from actually owning it,” says Gross. “If you were to carry it on the street, I don’t think anyone would really know that it’s worth a million dollars.”

Few can match Pharrell’s cultural pull — his debut show at Louis Vuitton fetched a record-breaking 775 million views on LV’s owned platforms and an additional 300 million views on press accounts. Unsurprisingly, his Millionaire Speedy Bag has become one of the most-talked-about accessories of this year; and many could have predicted that the bag would only be available for a select few, given its price tag. But with an unprecedentedly tight security detail, big-walleted consumers are left wondering if the accessory was ever meant for them in the first place. “In a weird way, it feels like a Pharrell friend club,” says Gross. “If you’re his friend, if you’re an A-list superstar, then you can be part of it.” That is, if you can actually afford it.

Whether Pharrell’s Speedy begins to creep onto the arms of the upper-upper class over the next several years, or if it remains a work of art to admire from afar, the bag is a phenomenon that transcends those before it. In the eyes of Louis Vuitton, it’s an artifact, a touchstone in its expansive archive to succinctly mark its present-day, spectacle-making identity — and that alone justifies the price. Fans might see it as the ultimate status symbol they’ll dream of one day owning; others might call it the epitome of elitism, scoffing at the very question of its worth. But, in the end, those bestowed with the keys to the Millionaire Speedy Bag’s web portal will have to weigh its million pros and cons on their own.