Why I started
1828 Couture.

I did not come from fashion. I studied Biomedical Science at Singapore Polytechnic. But outside school, I kept finding myself pulled towards the resale market — especially handbags.

At first, it was just eBay.

I would browse listings late at night, looking at the same bags over and over: a Chanel flap in black caviar, an old Balenciaga City, a Dior Saddle in a colour that had disappeared from stores years ago. I started noticing things that were not obvious from the listing title alone.

Two versions of what looked like the same bag could be priced thousands apart. Sometimes it made sense: one had damaged corners, missing paperwork, worn hardware, or an unpopular colour. Other times, it did not. The seller had simply guessed. Or priced it based on one unusually expensive listing. Or hoped someone else would not know better.

That was the part I found interesting.

I began comparing listings properly — condition, leather, hardware, size, colour, year, accessories, seller location, and how long a bag had been sitting unsold. Slowly, I built my own sense of what certain bags were actually worth in the market, rather than what someone hoped to get for them.

Back then, the resale market was much messier. There were fewer specialist platforms, less price transparency, and no easy way to understand whether a listing was fair. You had to open twenty tabs, remember what you had seen, and make your best judgement.

1828 Couture comes from that habit.

I wanted to build the kind of reference I wished existed: a place where you can see the live asking market for a bag, understand the normal range, and spot when a price needs a second look.

This site is not here to tell you that every designer bag is an investment. Most bags are not. Prices move, tastes change, and condition matters more than people think.

It is here to make the market less opaque.

Whether you are buying your first pre-owned bag, selling one you have owned for years, or hunting for a very specific piece, I hope 1828 Couture gives you a clearer place to start.

— Monica Ho
Founder & Editor, 1828 Couture · Singapore

What 1828 Couture does

1828 Couture tracks live pre-owned listings and turns them into a practical market read: the current asking range, the median, the condition split, and the listings behind the numbers.

It is a buyer-side reference, not an appraisal. I cannot promise what a bag will sell for, and I do not present asking prices as completed-sale values. The goal is simply to show the market as it looks on the day you check it.

How I keep it independent

Some links on the site may earn a referral fee if you buy through them. That does not decide which listings appear or where they rank.

A listing is included because it matches the bag and helps show the market — not because it pays more.

If you want to see exactly where the data comes from and how the figures are calculated, it is all documented below.