Is Your $3,000 Handbag Worth It? Tanner Leatherstein Has the Answer.

0:00Volkan Yilmaz: I always think spring is a perfect excuse to dress a little softer and a little bit more romantically. And apparently Macy's fashion experts are saying that pastel dream is the trend to know right now. What I love about it, it's not really going like full head-to-toe pastel. It's more about those softer details that make an outfit feel fresh and a bit elevated. Think delicate florals, lace, ruffles and sheer layers alongside flowy dresses or tailored pieces in lighter tones. It feels polished, pretty and very spring, but still easy to make your own. And you'll find it all at Macy's.

0:42Hi, this is Imran Ahmed, founder and CEO of the Business of Fashion. Welcome to the BOF podcast. It's Friday, March 27th. Volkan Yilmaz, known to his millions of followers as Tanner Leatherstein, grew up in his family tannery in Turkey, learning to convert raw animal hides into finished leather from the age of 11. That foundation took him through an improbable journey, a failed business venture in Turkmenistan, a green card lottery win, years of driving trucks and cabs across New Jersey and Chicago, an MBA, a brief stint in management consulting, an Etsy shop he built from scratch, and eventually, almost by accident, a viral video that changed everything.

1:29He started cutting luxury bags open, applying acetone to test the finish, burning the leather to verify tanning claims, scratching the hardware to see what's underneath, and asking, what are you really paying for? I know the level of quality can be sold at$500 -$600, a very decent leather bag. The upwards of it is for the portions of status signaling. They're not selling you a leather bag. They're selling you a signal of status loaded on a hopefully ideally good leather bag. If I'm a customer of this brand paying$3 ,000, I know I'm buying a status signal. But at least I deserve the best of quality of materials and craftsmanship.

2:13What surprised me in these dissections is sometimes I couldn't even find that. Tanner joined me at our London offices to discuss what he's found inside some of the world's most famous handbags, what it tells us about the relationship between price and quality and luxury, and what he believes comes next for an industry under growing pressure from consumers who are no longer willing to take marketing at face value. Here's Tanner Leatherstein on the BOF podcast. Tanner Leatherstein, welcome to the BOF podcast. Thank you for having me. You have spent the last few years tearing up and cutting up leather, luxury leather bags and asking the deceptively simple question, what are they worth?

3:02And I'm so excited to dive into this with you because I remember when I first came across your videos, like unlike so many things that I scroll, I stopped and watched the whole thing. because you have like a really interesting perspective, starting with your family's tannery in Turkey. So that's where I want to begin. What was that like growing up? Tell us about your introduction to leather making. My dad had a tannery in Turkey and that was his own business. He started when he was 17 and he loved taking me around when I was like eight, nine. And it's that magnetism. It's hard to explain. When I was in there, I was really wanted to be in there.

3:55Like I was attracted to it. And were you, were you drawn to it because it's what your dad did or were you drawn to it just viscerally? Just because of this. Like it just, it's leather tanning is like cooking. cooking has a lot of chemistry involved and it's a long process, like cooking for a month kind of thing. And I was so fascinated how a smelly, dirty, bloody trash turns into a luxury fabric at the end of that process. It's like alchemy. So that process attracted me a lot. And what was it actually like in there? Describe it to us with the kind of young person's perspective. How did it look?

4:36What did it smell like? What was it like inside? Most people haven't seen the inside of a tannery. For good reasons. So you are not automatically going to like it. It's stinky. Like you imagine meat leftover outside under heat. It petrifies and bacteria and, you know, smell. That's what leather is in the raw form. And that smell is all over the place because that flesh, the fat, the dirty parts are in the first stages of tanning. It's not an appealing or easy place to be at the beginning, but after a while, magically it grows on you. Like you start to feel like, oh, I kind of miss that smell. And I feel home with that smell.

5:22Almost addictive, but it's disgusting at the first sight. And when did you first start practicing the kind of art or the craft or the science of tanning and making things with leather? How did that happen? Age of 11. I remember like yesterday, like this was summer holidays started. You know, my friends were going to, you know, summer houses and all that stuff. I was like, this is my time to work at the tannery. And that summer my dad said, like, took me to the warehouse where we keep the raw sheepskins. Like, pick five, whichever one you like, and pick the good ones because like, he's always trying to teach me how to pick that.

6:08and then tan it in our little lab. We have smaller machinery for testing purposes. At the end, you're going to make your own jacket with it. At the time we were making what you call shirling or double face with the four on, sheepskins. I did that. At the age of 11. Yeah. With helps from masters, you know, I'm asking, I'm trying to learn from these technicians and writing my recipes. I did that. It turned out okay. And I ended up making a leather jacket with those five skins. And it was me going in full time after that. I was very into what I was able to produce then. I just wanted to learn more after that.

6:46So basically this whole idea of making things with leather was kind of embedded within you from a very young age. Partially because your family was connected to it. partially because you were kind of viscerally drawn to it but somehow you ended up becoming a management consultant how did like so how did that happen so so that's a unexpected twist in the story so we moved our tannery to turkmenistan around 2007 leather industry was kind of going downhill in turkey and we were looking for different things we did that a year there it didn't turn out the way we expected. We had a local partnership.

7:31We ended up leaving everything. I got a green card lottery from U.S. when I was in Turkmenistan and things were not going well. And I took it - How old were you? This was 2009, 23. Okay. And I'm like, okay, this is my ticket out of here. And when I went to U.S., it was meaning started life from scratch, basically. And leather is not really a huge industry in U.S. I tried. I couldn't find a tenor-related job. So from Turkmenistan, you went to where in the U.S.? New Jersey. Okay. Two different worlds, right? Big time. What did that feel? Had you ever been to the U.S. before? Yes. That's how, like, in 2006, I spent a summer in U.S.

8:14with work and travel program. I was a lifeguard in New Jersey. I enjoyed it. And that's when I applied for that green card thing. and it turns out I paid a company to keep applying for me on like five years or something. Completely forgot about it. In the third year, they let me know when I was in Turkmenistan, I got it. So it was completely out of blue and that's how I ended up in US. I was a truck driver first delivering textiles to hotels and motels in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania area. Six months later, I moved to Chicago. I became a cab driver. I was a cab driver for three years. that's where I heard about consulting, driving consultants around.

8:57You would know, I guess. Kind of. Yeah. Talking to like, what do you guys do? Like, where's all business from? So that sounds interesting. How do I become a consultant? And they said, you probably got to get an MBA. And that's how I ended up in UIUC, got a consulting job. And what were you consulting about? And which company were you with? I was at West Monroe Partners in Chicago. It's fairly new, but fast growing at the time, like best consulting firms to be at. And it was a nice place. My first corporate experience, we were helping pharmaceutical companies project manage their some sales of some drug brands and stuff like that.

9:37Oh, I did a project like that once in the Netherlands. And we were counting how the sales reps were interacting with the doctors? Yep. Same thing. Reporting, dashboarding. That's what I did for a whole year. How did that feel? I didn't like it. Why not? To say the least. It was super easy, like great pay. Like probably the easiest job I've ever done in my life. Like after Tannery and track driving, cab driving. I almost felt like, like, why am I getting paid this much? Like I didn't feel like I was doing enough and it didn't make me feel comfortable. For some reason, I was dying inside. I was able to hold until one year, just thinking maybe I would like it later, but I couldn't.

10:22So you stayed only one year. Yeah, and I quit. I'm like, and I didn't know what I was going to do afterwards. But there was an itch in me, wanted to go back to leather so bad because it's been like six, seven years now. I'm in the US and I'm far from leather. I went back to Uber driving after consulting In that time, I'm exploring Etsy. People are making wallets and things selling. Like maybe I just watch YouTube, learn how to make a wallet. So tell us how you found your way back to leather making. I guess I was really missing leather in that six, seven years that I was away doing other things, building a life in the U.S.

11:03And by understanding what I don't like that I tried. I'm glad I tried the corporate and all that. In the meantime, I learned a lot for business, like MBA and all that. But that was the time for me. Like, I really want to go back and do something with leather. This time it's Etsy designing small goods, wallets, belts, phone wallets, things like that. And that, my initial goal is like, can I sell two, three of these a day? And it took off so quickly. like I'm selling 20, 25 a day. So you were actually making products and selling them on Etsy, I got it. In hand, like I was Uber driving, got a sale, stopped for an hour and then make a wallet and then ship it out.

11:48Like that's how it started in 2017. Okay. And my brother at the time in Turkey was also looking for like what to do. And I said, why don't you guys like rehabilitate a little bit of our old Teneri building and then get a sewing machine and do these things for me i design and then i sell it here that's how i started the brand pegai at the time content comes out like four years after this okay so how did the like when did the content layer come in so we did this four years it grew to a point that i would never imagine like etsy shop amazon and we're doing pretty well and this almost like an inspiration Like I remember the moment we were coming back from Hawaii, a trip in the airplane.

12:37I had to write it down, like some feeling, almost my life purpose. I wrote this one page and I still keep reading it. Like, why am I here? Like, what's my mission with life? And it's like adding the dots together up until that point. Everybody who knows my involvement with leather, my excitement about leather, that keep coming me, hey, walk and look at this jacket I just bought. I look at this shoe wallet. Is it the real thing? Did I pay too much? That kind of gives me like the idea of people like leather. They want to use it, but they don't feel comfortable about assessing the quality themselves.

13:17And at that moment, maybe I can use social media to share what I know and help people understand it better. That was the clarity. Like literally on a plane, I had to write down and And then I start executing afterwards. Okay. What did you do? First change, I had to change a belief, a self-limiting belief, which I'm not good in front of camera, which I wanted to do a lot of things with social media before, but that was the stopping point myself. How did you identify that as a self-limiting belief? by trial and interestingly enough like coincidentally some i had my second child born at that time and right at that week i ran into this family who were trying to raise funds with their kid which was like a year old with some really weird disease super expensive treatment Like a GoFundMe or something.

14:18Something like that. And I wanted to make a video to help them. And I had a social media team in my business. Like, okay, we're going to do this now. Like, all right, put the camera over there. I'm going to try to make this speech and ask for donations from people for that story. Literally, my voice was shaking. Like, I was so insecure in front of the camera. And then I did it. It was like, oh, it's not that bad. It wasn't that difficult. Why do I think this way? I start questioning this and through a bunch of readings and all that stuff, I realized like, this is just the decision I had before and I could change.

14:54And it changed like that. How did you change it? I think that identifying that that was a decision that I made myself was the point. It just disappeared. Like as easily I could say like, I am good in front of camera. I actually enjoy talking to the camera. And that became the reality afterwards. It's so interesting, right? Because this self-talk that we all have as human beings, the voice in our head, the things we say to ourselves can sometimes be really hard on ourselves. Very hard. And we don't even notice. Yeah. Those are like decisions. Those are choices, some of them, well, most of them actually.

15:36Yeah. It's such an important point because I think simply by changing what you say to yourself, you can change the way you feel about yourself. Yeah. It starts with how you talk to yourself. And we need to speak to ourselves with more kindness. Okay. So that's all amazing. So you have this moment doing the GoFundMe video or the supportive video for your friends. And you realize all of a sudden, oh, it's not that bad. I can do this. How did you come up with the format? Because that's for us for a content creator. You know, there's so many of them now. Like recently I was I was with that guy on the ladder doing the like career.

16:21Do you know that format? No. there's this there's this ladder guy and he's known around the world and you go up the ladder and you like talk to him about your career and he tries to guess what your job is or there's the ones that there's like these influencers or creators on the street and they like stop you on the street they ask you a bunch of questions like each of these formats you know they're they're made to look spontaneous or but actually a lot of thought goes into like how you created tell us how you created your format mine was based on a hunch and a coincidental click i did videos prior to that concept that you know worth it the concept destroying the bags i was doing videos that explains what leather is types of leather you know more luxury informative only but one day we were thinking with my social media guy in the business i was like chanel is interesting like we we should probably look into it and talk about it so i had a phone call to chanel customer service asking about their zip wallet which is 1200 it was a very interesting conversation for me like did it make sense what i heard and then And why didn't it make sense?

17:39I asked them like, because probably my question didn't make sense to them. No one calls them and asks like, why is it$1 ,200? And then the answers were like, well, because it's caviar leather. Like, what is caviar leather? And knowing what leather is, like the answer didn't make sense at all. And I was like, I reported this interaction. That was my first viral video. And the next day we're like, what happened? Like, how did it happen? I had probably 200 followers, never made a video of that scale before. How many people did that video reach? 400 ,000, 500 ,000. Immediately my account was like from 200 to maybe 2 ,000 followers.

18:19It was shocking. Okay, so you knew you were kind of onto something. Yes, yes. That was the first signal. And next morning we sit down with my team there, which is just another person. You know, what happened there? And I had this consulting project with Brandon Kane a year and a half before this, prior to this. And it was completely about how can I do better advertising on social media for my brand, Pegaye. I picked up some concepts from them, like how to identify what worked in a successful video once you run into it and then try to formalize it. So I approached it with that mindset. And we had a bag laying out there, Brooks Brothers, I think at the time that my friend had.

19:02why don't we destroy this and look into it? That whole concept came with that idea. Like we had other team members there, girls. I asked like, anybody has acetone? Because I wanted to see what's under the finish and I didn't know if it's going to work and it worked great. Like I was able to remove it. So it was like a spontaneous thing. Like the test that I do to check the finish, like acetone just ripped the finish and I was like, oh, this is great. This is super easy way I can check these finishes now. Like the whole concept, the ash test, everything born in that first video. And it was more vital than yesterday's Chanel commentary.

19:40You know, what's really interesting about your story is it reminds me of the story of how Christian Louboutin came up with his red soles. You know, one day he basically turned over a pair of shoes and just put some nail polish on the bottom. And that became his signature. Like these moments of discovery where you're like trying to figure out what you're known for. Like he became known for the red soul and you become known for this tear down video. So for people who aren't familiar with your videos, walk us through what that format is now. Now that you've had millions of views, hundreds of thousands of followers, like break down the formula and the format for us and help us understand why you think that works.

20:25So now I call that one worth it concept. Is it worth it? Is it worth it? And the video opens with a thing that you don't expect or see people to do. Just cutting into an expensive bag, immediately recognizable with logos or shape. Louis Vuitton X, is it worth your$2 ,000? And that's what I call in a viral video, I call that the scroll stopper. Yeah. Basically, it's the thing that once someone sees that, they just have to pause. They have to stop. Yeah, exactly. Like, hold on. Okay. So that's your scroll stopper is like taking a really expensive bag and like ripping through it. Okay. Then what happens?

21:08Then I give a little bit context to familiarize it. Like, what is this video going to be about? Like, I just bought this, you know, very popular tote from this, from Dallas Mall. I paid that much. In the meantime, the visual, because it has to be a quick video. like less than three minutes, right? In the meantime, the visual showing me this, throwing it apart. So they are already queuing in, okay, we're gonna go into details of this. Then I do initial feelings about the bag. Like, okay, craftsmanship, I found these little issues here, but we're gonna go deeper. Then I apply acetone to the leather, see how natural or standardized the leather is.

21:48So tell us what the acetone does exactly. Acetone removes the finish layer of the leather, which in fashion there is almost always there is a level of finish for like standardization of color and protection purposes because leather is way too naked and natural otherwise. And the more that finishes on it, it kills the naturality of it. It becomes more of a commodity. You can use super normal available roheyes to accomplish it. So the finish that you're trying to kind of establish or discover with the acetone, that's what's kind of hiding or disguising the underlying quality of the leather. 100%.

22:32So finishes the makeup on the bag. I'm trying to see how much makeup is on it, because if it's too much, then you don't need a great material to start with. But some leathers are naturally pretty. you can get away with like super tasteful finishes and it's just perfect. So the higher the quality of leather, the less finish you need. In general, we can say that, yes. Okay. Especially in fashion. So you do the acetone bit, you're establishing how much makeup they've put on this bag, and then? And then I go into other aspects of the craftsmanship, edge paint, and then I analyze the quality of the hardware in the quickest or dirtiest ways possible.

23:16you know, in a table, trying to scratch the coating of the hardware because it's also a huge range. There is softer, cheaper metals with cheaper coating, whereas stainless steel with, you know, gold plating and all that stuff. Understand that. And then understanding or checking if there is any claims of certain types of tannages, like vegetable tan leather, which may be a premium depending on what you're doing with it. So I burn the leather. That's the quickest test you can do to get a fairly accurate feeling of it's accurately vegetable tan leather or not. And sometimes it doesn't check out with what the brand claims.

23:58So I check whatever I read in the product description. And then I lay out all the letters I see, materials inside, try to make a cost estimate from my industry knowledge. How much does it cost to make this bag? Yeah. From labor, hardware, and leather standpoint. Again, completely business models and overhead costs or marketing is out of this equation. I'm just estimating cost of goods. Yeah, the raw materials. Yeah. And then I try to find a multiplier to the price. So, yeah, 3X, 4X, 5X, 20X sometimes, depending on - What's the highest multiple you found? 15 to 20, I would say it's not atypical in luxury fashion today.

24:47You know, Louis Vuittons and Pradas and sometimes YSLs, around that.

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26:08So in your view, Tanner Volkan, is luxury fashion handbags, are they worth it?

26:21So it depends, right? The best consulting answer. So what are you trying to do? Like, what's your purpose of buying a luxury bag? If you're trying to buy a good bag, you wanna get a good quality bag that you're gonna use for a while. It's not justifiable. The luxury prices today are not justifiable with that motivation alone. But we have another need. We don't only need bags. We need status. We need personal and psychological things. We need to show the world where we are in life, right? Like how well we're doing. That's the status signaling. And if that's the motivation, That's your only option.

27:05So basically you're saying for most luxury fashion handbags, the price you're paying is for the branding and the related status and kind of self-worth that you might as a customer attach to having something from that brand and much less to do with the quality. 100%. The interesting thing is when these brands talk about what they're selling, when you look at their marketing language, when you look at their credits and descriptions, it's all about quality and craftsmanship. And there's a really interesting tension there, right? Yes, it is. And so there's two aspects. One aspect that proves this is completely not driven by the quality of the materials or craftsmanship.

28:01is very prominent in the market in the past 10-15 years. There are brands that are doing same level or above crafts. Newcomer brands that experience great growth in the past 10 years. And I compare them. I compare the materials, workmanship. I know where they are being made. I live in the town now. I see the same bags being made in the same ateliers by the same people using same materials. So I know the level of quality can be sold at$500,$600, a very decent leather bag. So the upwards of it is for the portions of status signaling. And again, I'm not being disrespectful to the brands who can do this because it's a very difficult business to build that status onto a logo and then put it on a leather bag.

28:54It's super expensive. It takes decades. And lots of marketing money and lots of investment. Enormous. Yeah. And it's risky because these are like super ongoing high costs. If something goes wrong at some point, these businesses are hard to turn around. Like you are locked into super expensive rents and locations and teams. So high risk, high reward, like it's a different game. They're not selling you a leather bag. They're selling you a signal of status loaded on a hopefully, ideally, good leather bag. On the other hand, with the incentives of corporate world, these brands, some of them, became too much incentivized by quarterly growth and profit margins that push the quality down to below what's minimally required, in my opinion, for that price point.

29:50If I'm a customer of this brand paying$3 ,000, I know I'm buying a status signal, but at least I deserve the best of quality of materials and craftsmanship. What surprised me in these dissections is sometimes I couldn't even find that. That kind of pissed me off a little bit. This is what you really owe to your customers if you're selling these bags. That needs to be changed. So in some cases, you're saying even leaving aside the value you might be getting from status signaling, some of these bags from some of these brands don't even meet the minimum standard of quality. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Okay.

30:31So I want to do a speed round with you. Okay. This is going to be our little viral moment. I'm going to list a bunch of bags from different brands, and I want you to tell me worth it, not worth it. And I want you to keep in mind the combination of underlying basic level of quality that you think is important and status signaling. Together, like a combined value. Like a real customer would. But you happen to be a very, very, very informed customer. Right. Who understands from the age of 11 how to make beautiful things with leather. Right. And you understand now because you've been poking around this industry now for a little while, like certain brands and like what they do.

31:19Chanel 255 flat bag. Not worth it. Louis Vuitton speedy bag. Canvas or leather. Canvas. Not worth it. Leather? Maybe. Prada Galleria bag. Not worth it. YSL Cassandra bag. Maybe. Gucci Dionysus bag. Worth it. For the price. Again, I'm always thinking price and what they are. Worth it. Bottega Veneta Integriato Andiamo bag. Worth it. I am very impressed with a lot of Bottega. And that's a lot of Bottega bags I looked into. I found them worth it. Coach Tabby bag. Worth it. And finally, Hermes Kelly bag. Worth it. Okay, that's so interesting because we just kind of covered a broad spectrum of brands at all different price points.

32:18Generally speaking, how did you end up where a coach bag is worth it? An Hermes bag is worth it? A Bottega Veneta bag is worth it? But a Prada bag is not worth it. A Vuitton bag is not worth it. so my approach when i'm looking into holistically quality of the products price and the signal power of the logo the we can go on the examples like if speedy is on canvas for the price i can't justify from the material quality standpoint, that fails there. So for me, it's not worth it. But when we're talking about Bottega, I'm very impressed by leather selections. Like they really use top of the line leathers.

33:11Their design language is quite unique to themselves and the bag looks different. The bag itself has a signaling power. Although they're expensive, they're giving you everything they're supposed to. So to me, that's worth it. Coach, on the other hand, is like completely different game. For$400,$500, this is a super well-made bag. Most of the leather selections, I'm quite impressed with Coach's leather selection expertise. It's absolutely worth it. I mean, signal power is not to the level of these luxury labels, but for the quality of the bag, it's a no-brainer. So that's all been super interesting.

33:54Thank you for that education. the same time that you've been developing this format and becoming known for your expertise, you've started building a business around what you do, right, as a creator. So how do you respect the independence of what you do? You know, you've got your own brand, plus you're doing work now with this company called Stowe in the UK, which is, I think, a brand you might've discovered and rated highly, and that's how they came to you. But, you know, while you're kind of juggling both building this audience and trying to get engagement. And you've really built a reputation of trust.

34:32Like when we added you to the BOF 500 is because we really felt like you'd developed this strong reputation that people trusted you. And as a creator, that's priceless, right? It is. Thank you. At the same time, you're building your own businesses, you have commercial interests, you're trying to like make a living. Like how are you balancing that? So, you know, the one personal guiding principle for me, I'm trying to stick to my mission, which is that one sentence summary of what I wrote in the airplane from Hawaii. I want to help people understand and experience leather better. Understand is through the content.

35:17You know, I'm looking into bags and I am sharing what I know without any, you know, underlying motivation so far. And experience part is I'm trying to make my own interpretation of what a good leather bag should be. So I help you with my content to understand and shop or make better informed purchase decisions on other brands. But I also love working with leather. And when I find a good leather, I could make a good bag with this leather. And this is my understanding of what a good leather bag should be, which probably doesn't exist in the market. And that's why I want to make it. That's the second part of the mission.

35:58So I think it doesn't really challenge each other. It complements in my mind and I'm trying to stick to that idea the most. So far, I didn't hear complaints about these really like overriding each other. Hopefully I can keep it that way. Yeah. And tell us a bit about your audience. Like who's watching? What have you learned about the community of people that you've built? So I'm not big on analytics. Like I don't look at my analytics that are who watched it. Like you could ask me, like I would have no clue. Sometimes brands ask me, I'm like, I have to look at it. But I know them from the street.

36:43Like today, probably four people stopped me at the airport. Like since I left Ubrique, like, oh, I'm watching her. It was in a store. I'm watching her. Aren't you the guy cutting the bags? Like, and they tell me why they're watching it for. Like, this is the best feeling I get about my audience. It's like, I think I heard it twice from two of these people today. Anytime I want to buy a bag, I go to your page and I just like, did you review that? Like, I really want to make sure if you watched it, if you did that review, I'm going to watch it and then decide. And that makes me very happy because that was my intention.

37:18That was my intention to help people understand what leather is there so they can make better decisions. I'm not making a judgment on these bags. I'm just sharing what I know, which is beyond the marketing that you get otherwise. So you decide because you value different things than I do. That makes me happy. That's the audience. I think that's what they're watching it for. And that's what I'm making it for. But perhaps going back to your earlier question a little bit. Now, I'm almost there now, kind of like consolidating these ideas into an overarching business model, which is going to be live next week or in two weeks under eternalleatherstein.com websites instead of my separate brand, separate websites, which is like a digital magazine that's full of these stories of explorations, leather space and leather fashion, which leads to those products, either mine or other brands that will be refreshed every two weeks or so.

38:19It's almost like a direct mail catalog with extensive stories and information about the leather. Will there be reviews on them and like your ratings of saying like I... Yes, like for my own catalogs, it will start with that. And then later on, I will incorporate other things I do with other brands as well. So the goal is to almost make it like a media business that that is hyper-focused on leather space. And time to time, it either produces its own product when it sees there is a need for it or an experimental concept. Or it refers you to other places where you can buy a product. And will you get an affiliate commission for that?

39:01Yes, yes. Okay. That's the, now, I haven't think much about monetization on the content and so far. Like I was almost writing fully on my brand income to subsidize this. But now with this new business model, that will open some avenues for me to find monetization models with brand partnerships. Like, okay, this is a brand I discovered from, you know, X country. I loved it for these reasons. And you can go and shop in their own stores with referral income, maybe. Well, that's really interesting. I didn't know that. But that's good timing for this podcast because maybe this is the first place you're talking about this.

39:38100%. Like this is literally the first place. Okay, well, I'm really looking forward to seeing that. Tell me, have you heard from the brands you talk about? You know, you had a pretty clear point of view on a bunch of big brands and very well-known bags. Like, do they get in touch with you, the brands? Many times, none of them were negative. Like nobody came back to me saying that like, how dare you? Or it's not true. Or it's, you know, just take that back. Never heard that from any brand. Many times, if it was like a not really great review, they reached out and was like, tell me more. Like, what can we do about this?

40:16Like, can you help us improve the material selection? Can you help us like what was wrong with it? Sometimes they didn't even know. There was occasions that we discovered something that was not what brand was. So in a way, like you could go back to your management consulting days and give advice to some of these companies about how they can improve their products. And time to time I'm doing as much as they request, like as a result of these videos or they come to me, again, as much as I can find time as well. So I offer that little bit advisory kind of role in the quality and production side to some brands.

40:56Right. So fascinating. Congratulations. I mean, what a way to start a business with a real, well, it wasn't even a business, to find your mission and purpose and then to somehow turn it into a company. Yeah. That's actually doing really meaningful work. You know, before we finish up, I'm just, I'm curious about what you think of the state of the luxury market right now. There's like such a crisis of confidence amongst the luxury brands. There's a growing mistrust amongst customers just because, you know, as you mentioned earlier, they've, prices have increased a lot. In some cases, quality has gone down.

41:39Like as someone kind of navigating this space, what do you make of what's happening now? And if you were advising brands in the luxury leather space, what would you tell them to focus on? I think because of these hyper financially focused incentive structures in the corporate world, some areas like the quality and ethics in the production side got out of balance. And this wasn't visible up until 10 years ago to customers. And they were totally fine at the face value of marketing, assuming everything is right. But now with social media, with more people looking into like what's going on behind the scenes and all these scandals, it's a natural result of chasing ever growing profit every quarter.

42:32Like the quality suffers, the people who make these stuff suffers at the end of the day, because those are, you know, the weakest points of the chain. That needs to be, I think, in a proactive way addressed by the brands right away. because it's unacceptable. If you're going to charge a premium and sell your customer a status signal, that needs to be checking so many boxes automatically. Like it's not even optional. Quality, ethical things, sustainability. It shouldn't be only a talk, but a very serious effort within the company to make sure that that is being delivered. Even that is not going to be enough to, I think, most luxury labels that we know so far is gonna make through this change, I think, because the challenger brands in the space has been so successful 10, 15 years now, proving that that quality is now achievable at five,$600 price points.

43:36And many people are like, well, then I'm only gonna pay that because I'm really not into that status game anymore, which means this this pie in the luxury end will shrink it will move into more fragmented mid-market levels i think more people will shift towards these brands which means some of these bigger players have to really invent their unique value proposition I don't think it's an end of the luxury kind of thing. It's just an evolution. It needs to become something else. There is a big amount of like figuring out like what's next, what that next thing is going to for each and every brand, because you can't even replicate what others did and become successful.

44:26You need to find your own new version of yourself. So that's what I'm expecting to see in the luxury, like highest end of this modern luxury space in the next 10 to 15 years. And I wouldn't be surprised some of the really big names if they can't figure it out. So that's a fun thing that I'm watching right now. So what happens to them then? I don't know. They might just lose relevance with, you know, if they can't figure out like, what's that next reason people keep desiring them? Because this mistrust that is growing, sometimes triggering other moments like you know the dupe culture like some people are so feeling angry about this thing like i'm now it's okay for me to use the fake because i feel like i'm hurting you yeah like like or like if yours for a product that you're selling me at an inflated price at a lower level of quality is essentially a dupe yeah why don't i just get a dupe yeah and And that's why this dupe culture is like crazy.

45:31It's booming. Are there any brands you would call out as saying like, really doing it right? You called them challenger brands earlier. Like what brands do we need to know and look at that are offering... I know you really like Stowe and you're working with them, but apart from Stowe, like are there companies that... Many. There are many. So great examples. I admire the work done by Song Mont. From China. It's one of the unique examples, you know, China. Amazing quality. But I got their bags way before I knew anybody in the company. And I was so impressed. Like, I really need to know where you got this leather from.

46:14Like, I want to use that leather. And are those bags made in China? Yes, all of them. Great hardware, stainless steel. So the hardware that I'm expecting to find in$3 ,000 bags, but sometimes I'm failing to find it. They use it. And they are using this China's enormous ability of production efficiency and quality, creating this beautiful example. I'm so impressed what they're doing. Strawberry is a great example. And where are they based? Scotland based. They have many stores in London here. I think they're very, very successful in this new game. Strathbury. Strathbury, yeah. They're also made in a RK.

46:58Polen is a good example. Although I haven't checked their bags for the last three years, maybe. Like very early on in my content, I was very impressed with what they were doing. I'm hearing some quality concerns and issues because they became huge. They are making like a lot of bags. and things get rough when you scale very quickly maybe it's you know it's a period growth pains kind of thing there are other brands like on top of my like those three came to my mind the quickest Manu Atelier from Turkey yes was another impressive one like a good family doing very impressive work from Turkey which is my home country and I tried doing it I hit the ceiling of quality in Turkey.

47:43And that's why I moved to Spain. And they managed to do it. They managed to do it. It was a great eye-opening experience for me to learn what they accomplished there. Okay. Well, Tanner Leatherstein, Volkan, thank you so much for your time. That was so interesting. I really appreciate you. And I will never forget when we first met at the BOF 500 Gala a couple years ago. And we had this lovely little chat. It was like a lot of stuff happening in that room, But what you're doing is so great. So thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks for inviting. Thanks for having me at the gala, at the list. It's an honor.

48:22And again, I remember like yesterday as well. What do you remember? You said like the work, like literally almost verbatim, you said to me, the work you have done and you're doing is so important to keep some of these brands accountable and, you know, inform customers. that means a lot so that was my intention and that comes across and being recognized just makes it worth it okay well hopefully we'll see you again thank you for coming to our offices and good luck with everything i'm sure this is just the beginning thank you yeah it is like i'm i'm doing what is a game for me and i'll keep playing so great thank you thank you The BOF Podcast is edited and produced by Olivia Davies and Eric Bria.

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