TAKING AIM AT HERMÈS’ MYSTIQUE

Keeping ultra-luxe bags, like the Hermès Birkin c35cm (right) in short supply has benefitted brands. But that game plan is coming under attack as resellers of gently used bags are seeing so much demand that venture capitalists are investing in the cottage industry.

Hermès has a problem. The French luxury handbag maker’s infamous waiting lists and limited supplies have spawned a robust cottage industry that is nipping at its snooty heels.

The fashion house’s rejected customers — including princes and Wall Street kings of commerce — are finding new places to get their $14,000-plus Birkins, likely from the fast-growing business of luxury bag reselling

The resellers, once small mom-and-pop affairs hidden away from the public eye and known only through word of mouth, are now quickly expanding — and coming out of the shadows.

And they are attracting some serious venture capital investment cash.

“Hermès has created an opportunity as a result of the way they do business,” explained Judy Taylor, owner of Madison Avenue Couture, which regularly stocks about 200 gently used Hermès bags.

And because in the luxe bag game snoot equals loot — Taylor is selling her “secondhand” bags at well above their original price tag.

“The reason we exist is that people finally got fed up,” said Taylor, who operates the by-appointment-only business in a residential building off Madison Avenue.

Taylor’s successful shop is one of at least a dozen such operations. These businesses, including The RealReal and Rebag, have raised just shy of $200 million over the last several years. The money helps them pay top dollar for the bags — to keep inventory robust and their well-heeled customers happy.

The companies buy their bags from A-list women who, despite their wealth and power, enjoy flipping their bags — out with the old and in with the new color or model bag.

“You can’t walk into an Hermès store and say ‘I want a Kelly 28cm’ and be shown an array of bags,” said Taylor.

“You’ll be told ‘we have none’ ’’ or be offered something entirely different or nothing at all, Taylor added. Madison Avenue Couture’s average transaction is $13,000.

Supplies of new Hermès bags are so limited that the Paris company said last year it is building two new production facilities. But they won’t open until 2020.

“We had a prince from Qatar who bought five Birkin bags in different colors from us after he went to the Hermès store in Beverly Hills and couldn’t get what he wanted,” said Ben Hemminger, chief executive of Fashionphile, an online luxe reseller with three shops in California.

For the first time in its 19year history, Fashionphile in August is opening a boutique on Madison Avenue and 75th Street, joining a recently opened RealReal store in Soho and Rebag stores in Soho and on Madison Avenue.

“We used to be the only player when we first started out, but there is so much money chasing this market now,” Hemminger told The Post.

Fashionphile’s revenues have grown 50 percent a year over the past decade, to $61 million in 2017, according to Hemminger, who said he has 9,000 Gucci, Chanel, Fendi, Prada and Hermès bags in inventory.

Fashionphile’s stores are mostly used for customers who want to sell their bags. “You can walk in with your Birkin and walk out with a $5,000 check,” Hemminger said.

It remains to be seen whether the red-hot resale market for luxe bags will hurt the upscale brands — will the Birkin mystique, for example, be sullied as A-list clientele, with easy access to the pricey purses, continue to flip their bags?

As resellers grow, there may come a time soon when a common financial adviser will show up at a social event with the same Birkin as an A-lister.

It may be the next big test for a world-class brand.