We Did the Chanel Bag Math—Does Their Latest Move Put Your Dream Flap Within Reach?

In life, nothing is certain except death and taxes. Over the past five years in fashion, the only certainty has been luxury price increases.

Creative directors have swapped posts; fashion trends have shifted from the muted tones of quiet luxury to the cascading ruffles and ethereal sheer fabrics of an early-aughts boho comeback. It-bags have transformed from oblong east-west styles to extra-oversize leather totes. Throughout it all, Chanel's handbags have increased in value every year since 2016. According to a calculation by Business of Preloved Fashion, the price of a quintessential Chanel Flap bag—quilted leather, envelope-shaped, secured with a chain strap—rose 100 percent from 2012 to 2022 (from $4,400 to $8,800). At press time, the 2025 cost has gained an extra place value: a small leather flap currently retails for $10,400.

A post on the Reddit thread r/handbags once posed the question of whether a Chanel bag is a better investment than the stock market, given how its market value has increased annually. (During the COVID-19 pandemic, there were even quarterly price hikes.) According to recent calculations from CNBC, the answer for fashion collectors is yes.

Chanel's annual price hikes typically earn a shrug from its very important clients or a smirk from shoppers who got their flap bags early and haven't let go. Chanel ladies (or men!) in waiting have watched the increases with trepidation. Even after price hike percentages returned to single digits, the final receipt still totaled nearly $10,000—a challenging amount to gather for an aspiring entry-level designer shopper. While it's not getting a red line discount, it's also not necessarily getting worse.

Chanel is hitting “pause” on its routine handbag mark-ups amid a less predictable luxury landscape. The house’s 2024 results, released in May, show revenue easing 4.3 percent to $18.7 billion—its first pull-back since 2020. So executives have framed the breather as a chance to steady growth while the broader economy remains in flux.

On a recent earnings call, Chanel's CFO Philippe Blondiaux addressed the decision to limit price increases. "The average pricing effect we had for fashion was 3 percent last year, which I’m sure you will agree was perfectly in line with global inflation, if not less than that," he said. "We intend to maintain more or less the same policy, which is to monitor our prices in line with global inflation in 2025."

The future of the brand's tags and the styles they modify depends on the success of Matthieu Blazy, who is joining as creative director from Bottega Veneta. His first collection will debut at Paris Fashion Week in September. Blazy has gained widespread recognition for his leather goods wizardry. "For the future, we are doing everything we can to offer the best ecosystem in terms of high-quality leather…the best quality raw materials to really foster [Blazy's] creativity," CEO Leena Nair said.

Chanel hasn’t hinted that its Classic Flap will dip below its current $10,400 price tag—or that it would ever roll prices back—but a pause on hikes at least means the goalposts aren’t moving farther away in today’s choppy economy. And if you’d rather wait it out, parking your dollars in the S&P 500 can keep your money working until you’re ready to splurge. Keep the savings plan on autopilot; one solid market upswing could put that flap within reach sooner than you think.