Luxury, as with everything else, has its levels. Luxury perfume and cosmetics are the entry level, according to both price and deliberate positioning by designer brands. Handbags and shoes are the next step up; they’re much more expensive, but still accessible because they’re durable goods that don’t require the wearer to maintain an adolescently slender frame. Beyond that is ready-to-wear, and eventually, haute couture. In my mind, despite its status as an accessory, items like the Gucci Leather Jewelry Briefcase fit in somewhere between ready-to-wear and haute couture.
This item isn’t made to order like couture, but it requires other trappings of extravagant wealth in order to be a reasonable acquisition. First, the buyer must have a venerable stash of jewelry and watches that requires such containment; you best believe that my mishmash of vintage costume jewelry doesn’t sit around in something like this. (Actually, it sits around in the box from the Balenciaga iPad case that my dear employers gifted me with last Christmas. Cardboard, but chic cardboard.)
Second, the buyer has to intend to travel with that stash of jewels and watches. Plenty of options are available for those who want to store their bijou at home, but for a piece like this, the intent is efficient storage during movement and while away from home. If you don’t jetset around the world and attend fabulous events that require such finery in many corners of the globe, then in all likelihood, you’ll buy another handbag or two for the price.
Then, of course, there’s the price itself. At $5,900, it costs more than an average Gucci handbag, and the leather exterior comes with an optionL diamond check cover in tonal velvet. It’s an accessory, but it’s beyond that – instead, a piece like this is the luxury lifestyle, distilled into a single jewelry case. Buy through Mr. Porter for $5900.
