Privé Porter is taking a two-pronged approach to its business, traditional and futuristic. The retailer of new and pre-loved Hermès Birkin and Kelly handbags and more, opened a brick and mortar store at Brickell City Center in November 2020. Now, it’s taking a leap into the metaverse by issuing authentication NFTs of its rare and exclusive handbags via a collaboration with Threedium and Boson Protocol to launch at Decentraland.org, the virtual world’s one-stop shop for browsing and buying digital assets, which is launching Metaverse Fashion Week beginning on March 24.
Jeffrey Berk, founder of Privé Porter, said brands want to take part in Decentraland Metaverse Fashion Week and are stamping out NFTs, those unique non-fungible tokens, because of the hype surrounding the new crypto form. “Anybody from fashion, fashion tech, Web 3 and crypto is going to be checking out Decentraland Metaverse Fashion Week,” Berk said. “There’s a lot of people who couldn’t pull it off. Our store on Decentraland is almost finished. Other fashion brands were supposed to be there, but they couldn’t pull the trigger. We think we have.”
The technology necessary to execute and sell actual physical goods is hard to master, Berk said, which is why Privé Porter teamed up with U.K.-based 3D design software company Threedium and Boson, another U.K. firm that’s handling fulfillment for the Privé transactions and those of many other brands. Four handbags will be minted into NFTs, including an Hermés 25cm Kelly Sellier Bleu Indigo Shiny Nilo diamond and 18K white gold hardware, listed at $280,000, the price of a house in some parts of the country, and an Hermés 25cm Birkin In and Out Biscuit/Multicolor Swift Palladium hardware 2021, which is set to fetch at least $58,000.
“Once there is the technology, per metaverse like Decentraland or Sandbox, the owner of this unit will be provided a version of this handbag as wearable,” Lot 002 of Decentraland Metaverse Fashion Week, reads a description of an Hermès 35cm Birkin Cargo Bleu Marine Palladium hardware coveted by Cardi B. and listed at $58,000. An Hermès 30cm Birkin HSS Mimosa/Turquoise Matte Porosus brushed gold hardware for $165,000 rounds out the group.
All four will be backed by physical products. “The serial number and the craftsman stamp as well as the information to redeem the physical handbag will be contained in the NFT, so there’s ultimately only going to be two people who know that data, me and whomever buys it,” Berk said.
Privé Porter’s collection of hard to find luxury watches will be on offer in April.
While Decentraland only has the real estate for four bags, Berk said he’ll be minting final NFTs from about 25 to 30 other pieces. “You’ll buy only the NFT on OpenSea.io The key is the lockable content and the details about what makes it unique,” he said.
The 3D imagery for the NFT comes courtesy of dozens of high resolution pictures of the actual handbag itself. The high-resolution pictures, in some cases, are a better reflection of the handbag’s actual color, Berk noted. “For all listings, we have to give the customer multiple high-resolution images like the ones they would normally see,” he said. “These customers are very particular and want to triple check the color and texture of the leather, get the closeups of the zipper and logo.
“We don’t do any e-commerce at all,” Berk said, adding that all that will change with the introduction of the Privè Porter store on Decentraland Metaverse Fashion Week. “I really love the technology,” he said. “Instead of just boring pictures of a bag – it’s not a boring bag – I envisioned this functionality, which is so cool. This is what I was doing with Threedium organically and I became really friendly with them and we just started talking more and more about luxury resale and they became fascinated with it.”
“Anybody selling an avatar that’s backed by physical goods, will have them delivered by Boson,” Berk said, adding that when the text populates, it will include education about the terminology and information about authenticity.
“We met Privé Porter to experiment during Metaverse Fashion Week because luxury fashion resale is an important part of the fashion industry,” said Justin Banon cofounder of Boson Protocol, which is a sponsor of the event. “Resale is a $24 billion category in and of itself. Through that courtship, we learned that Privé Porter’s vision is that an NFT’s ultimate value must be tied to physical products. There has to be an endgame where the NFT lives forever as authentication of a luxury collectible asset and its title.”
“The future of the luxury resale market will be linked to the metaverse, and 3D from Privé Porter as part of Metaverse Fashion Week is just the starting line,” said Mike Toner, chief marketing officer of Threedium.
At the other end of the spectrum, Privé Porter in 2020 opened its first brick and mortar store in Miami, which did more than $1 million in business in its first month. Privé Porter is close to opening a store in Dubai, since 35 percent of the company’s sales since 2015 have been in the Middle East. “People are looking for a way to get their profits in a more stable asset, whether it’s fractional ownership or a flat-out investment, these collectible alternative assets are becoming a bigger and more appreciated genre.”
Berk said he was at first skeptical about NFTs, but quickly changed his mind as he became educated. “We’re hoping and expecting that these crypto investors like DAO, make these investments,” he added. “What we’re going to be encouraging people to do is buy the NFT of the bag, leave it in our secure vault, because after all, it’s an investment. We can ship you the bag if you want, but there's going to be a provenance. At the end of the day it’s going to be minted by Privé Porter, and the NFT will prove that it’s authentic and whomever buys this eight months or 10 months down the road will use this [ledger record] to facilitate the sale.”
Privé Porter trademarked its logo’s shape and key symbol. Berk said the technology appeals to high end collectors’ urge to flaunt the rare handbags they buy with what could be the down payment on a small yacht.
“This is where I feel luxury is going,” Berk said. “If you’re walking around Decentraland with this bag, you’re going to be able to communicate with people and show the link of where it was bought. At the end of the day, how’s that any different than the woman who’s carrying her bag to dinner or showing it off on Instagram.”
