{"id":3561,"date":"2026-03-20T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/?p=3561"},"modified":"2026-03-20T06:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T06:00:00","slug":"gen-z-buyers-are-shaping-the-auction-market-and-theyre-choosing-bags-over-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/?p=3561","title":{"rendered":"Gen-Z Buyers Are Shaping the Auction Market \u2013 and They\u2019re Choosing Bags Over Art"},"content":{"rendered":"

Collectibles are emerging as the biggest source of auction activity \u2014 and new buyers are behind the charge.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"original<\/div>\n

It\u2019s no secret that the art market has had a rough couple of years, particularly at the \u2018big three\u2019 auction houses: Christie\u2019s, Sotheby\u2019s, and Phillips. ArtTactic, a research and analytics company, reported that art sales at those firms fell 44 percent in the first half of 2025 compared with the same period in 2022, blowing a $3bn hole in revenues. <\/p>\n

Global economic uncertainty, raging conflicts, soaring interest rates, and a cooldown of post-pandemic speculative buying have all contributed to collectors tightening their purse strings. And while the marquee autumn sales in New York<\/a> hinted at a rebound, the real growth story has been happening elsewhere: quietly, lucratively, and in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

That growth engine is luxury. Since 2019, sales of handbags, watches, jewelry, and other high-end collectibles have climbed steadily, to the point where luxury is threatening to rival art as the auction houses\u2019 financial backbone. If current trajectories hold, it may soon surpass it, fundamentally reshaping what the auction business looks like, and who it is for. <\/p>\n

Sotheby\u2019s offers the clearest case study. In December, the auction house projected $7bn in total sales for 2025, with $2.7bn coming from luxury alone, up 22 percent on 2023. It is the fourth consecutive year Sotheby\u2019s luxury division has cleared $2bn, while private luxury sales have ballooned by 350 percent year-on-year. Much of that momentum is coming from the Middle East, where the luxury market was valued at around $13bn \u2014 and growing \u2014 by the Dubai-based Chalhoub Group. <\/p>\n

See also: A Rare $20m Rembrandt Is Being Sold at Auction \u2013 for a Remarkable Reason<\/a><\/p>\n

\"mellon
The $25m 9.51-carat Mellon blue diamond \u00a9Christie’s<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While this figure pales in comparison to the US luxury market, for example, which is valued at $115.5bn for 2026 by Mordor Intelligence, Sotheby\u2019s is one of the few international auction houses operating in the UAE. Its $1bn deal with Abu Dhabi<\/a>\u2019s sovereign wealth fund, ADQ, has given it a powerful foothold in the region, culminating most visibly in Abu Dhabi Collectors\u2019 Week. The event generated $133m from outdoor auctions last December in the UAE.<\/p>\n

When I asked CEO Charles Stewart at Collectors\u2019 Week if luxury could eclipse art, he was pragmatic. \u201cOur DNA and heritage are very much rooted in fine art,\u201d he said, \u201cbut the addressable market across luxury categories \u2014 cars, jewels, watches, wine, spirits \u2014 is far larger than the art market.\u201d While he sees luxury potentially surpassing art in sales, Stewart stressed that the two remain distinct parts of the business. <\/p>\n

As for whether booming luxury sales might also change the Sotheby\u2019s identity, Stewart was firm. \u201cNo, absolutely not,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re not choosing between art or luxury \u2014 we\u2019re choosing the client. Top art collectors also buy watches, wine, property, and cars. It\u2019s client-led, not object-led.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"jane
Jane Birkin with her original Herm\u00e8s bag bag \u00a9Mike Daines\/ Shutterstock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Christie\u2019s is telling a similar story. In the first half of 2025, luxury sales rose by around 30 percent year-on-year. In December, the house said it expected luxury to account for close to a quarter of its projected $6.2bn in 2025 sales. It, too, is pushing into the Middle East, becoming the first international auction house licensed to operate in Saudi Arabia in 2024, even as Sotheby\u2019s stole a march by holding the kingdom\u2019s first international auction in February 2025. <\/p>\n

Last year\u2019s headline-grabbing results help explain the appeal: a $10.1m Jane Birkin Herm\u00e8s bag, a $30.2m Faberg\u00e9 Winter Egg<\/em>, a $25m 9.51-carat blue diamond. Beneath the trophy lots, however, is a more consequential shift; most business is done online, and luxury has become the primary entry point for new buyers at both Christie\u2019s and Sotheby\u2019s. A large chunk of those buyers are Millennial and Gen Z. They are shaping the future of the auction business, and they have a thirst for luxury collectibles.<\/p>\n

The next generation of bidders are less reverential about category boundaries and more comfortable treating watches, handbags, and jewelry as both cultural objects and financial assets. Digitally native, brand-literate, and globally mobile, they\u2019re shaping auction houses around themselves rather than vice versa. Whether or not they graduate to buying Picassos, they are already redefining what the future of the auction market looks like, and that future is glossy, global, and unapologetically client-led.<\/p>\n

\"faberge
The 1913 Faberg\u00e9 Winter Egg<\/em> \u00a9Christie’s<\/figcaption><\/figure>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Collectibles are emerging as the biggest source of auction activity \u2014 and new buyers are behind the charge.\u00a0 It\u2019s no secret that the art market has had a rough couple of years, particularly at the \u2018big three\u2019 auction houses: Christie\u2019s, Sotheby\u2019s, and Phillips. ArtTactic, a research and analytics company, reported that art sales at those […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3562,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","beyondwords_generate_audio":"","beyondwords_project_id":"","beyondwords_content_id":"","beyondwords_preview_token":"","beyondwords_player_content":"","beyondwords_player_style":"","beyondwords_language_id":"","beyondwords_title_voice_id":"","beyondwords_body_voice_id":"","beyondwords_summary_voice_id":"","beyondwords_error_message":"","beyondwords_disabled":"","beyondwords_delete_content":"","beyondwords_podcast_id":"","beyondwords_hash":"","publish_post_to_speechkit":"","speechkit_hash":"","speechkit_generate_audio":"","speechkit_project_id":"","speechkit_podcast_id":"","speechkit_error_message":"","speechkit_disabled":"","speechkit_access_key":"","speechkit_error":"","speechkit_info":"","speechkit_response":"","speechkit_retries":"","speechkit_status":"","speechkit_updated_at":"","_speechkit_link":"","_speechkit_text":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}