Hermès CEO Axel Dumas wants to make one thing clear: There’s only one Birkin bag and one place to get it.
The luxury brand boss expressed his frustration with the resale market that has emerged for the collectible handbag, telling investors during a second-quarter earnings call on Wednesday buyers purchasing the arm candy just to hike up its price for a secondhand sale are diluting Hermès’ true consumer base.
“Sometimes we have false customers come to our stores to buy them, to resell them, and they prevent us from serving our real customers, and that is a real cause for concern for us,” Dumas said.
“So, I’m not at all happy to see this development of new bags that are sold in the secondhand market,” he added. “I pull a face, and I’m not happy, and it doesn’t make me feel in a good mood.”
Hermès did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
The behavior of buying to sell may be viewed by Dumas as taking “opportunistic advantage” of the brand, according to Marie Driscoll, an equity analyst focused on luxury retail.
“He looks at the product and the brand as something more than a commodity,” Driscoll told Fortune. “Intrinsically, he thinks these are artistic pieces that are a product of someone’s imagination and someone’s hard work and labor and some of the best that Hermès can do. I think some of it has taken on a life of its own.”
“Making a copy like this is quite detestable—it’s stealing the creative ideas of others,” Dumas said.
“You’re going to have to have a longer engagement, which is kind of, in a very romantic sense, like being engaged to someone before the culmination of the wedding night,” she said. “You’re just going to have to postpone gratification.”
