Can you put a price on the cachet of a luxury logo? Seems you can and, in Chanel’s case, it is as much as 200 yuan ($31). The Shandong Business News (here, in Chinese) reports that the largest of the luxe-goods maker’s paper carrier bags are selling for that much on the online shopping site Taobao. Shopping bags from Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Hermes, Ferragamo are also in demand from aspirational consumers who can’t afford the haute couture that goes inside the bags but still want to look as if they are shopping at those brands’ stores.
True, this is a phenomenon seen the world over, and as the Shandong Business News notes, the same thing is happening in South Korea with Burberry’s carrier bags. The local twist is that when Prada and Channel introduced transparent bags this summer (so you could see what was inside), what also popped up on Taobao but cheap yellow protective dust bags being promoted as looking like rough silk and an ideal liner for see-through bags. Others then can’t see that you’ve just got a pair of old trainers in your Prada bag–and not a pair of the brand’s expensive, high-fashion shoes.
China Bystander 