Love shopping in Ireland (Loewe)

I’ve seen a few convos regarding the value of purchasing in Europe vs The U.S.

I had been eyeing the Loewe large Edge Puzzle for a while. I’m from SF and the price after tax for this baby back home was $4,499…basically $4500.

I travel to Europe (mainly Ireland) a few times a year and deeply regretted not getting it in Amsterdam this past summer after seeing the price difference.

I swung by Brown Thomas in Dublin and saw they had this beauty on display. 💶3400. Given it was the display, I hesitated for a moment and the wonderful SA at the store said he could take off 10%. This would never happen at a Loewe flagship so jumped on the change given the bag was perfectly fine.

That brought the bag down to 💶3060. I will be getting 💶490 back in vat which brings it down to 💶2570. After conversion that is $2671. That is a difference of $1,829. That is huge. That is almost a $2k difference.

Even without the additional 10% the SA took, that is still a $1,500 difference in price.

Net, net - I have stopped buying designer bags in the US, unless it is a very limited edition or run.