She Started Selling Luxury Handbags on Instagram with Zero Dollars. Luxe du Jour Now Does $30 Million a Year.
Tammy Phan grew up in Calgary with a passion for designer bags her family couldn't afford. She built a collection of 20 and started selling them to buy new ones. Ten years later, Luxe du Jour is Canada's leading pre-owned luxury platform — with offices on three continents and a $13M Series B on the table.
August 6, 2026 · By Justin Plosz · Calgary, Alberta · Business · 6 min read read
Twenty Bags, No Capital, and an Instagram Account
Tammy Phan was not book smart, by her own assessment. She was street smart and scrappy — a native Calgarian who fell in love with designer handbags at fourteen and spent her teenage years studying the top brands, learning to tell quality from imitation, and building a collection one piece at a time.
High school wasn't a good fit. She worked at a bank, which provided income she directed almost entirely into better bags. By the time she had twenty, she had a problem familiar to anyone who has ever been a collector: she wanted new pieces but couldn't keep buying without selling.
Consignment stores were asking forty percent commission. Online marketplaces were full of scammers and people trying to pay a fraction of market value. So Phan built her own alternative: she posted photographs of fifty bags — her own and those of friends — to Instagram, with detailed descriptions, fair prices, and a guarantee of authenticity. No paid advertising. No investment. No employees.
"I wasn't book smart, but I was street smart," she says. "And I was scrappy."
Demand arrived immediately. More inventory followed, in quantities she hadn't planned for. She moved back home to accommodate it. For four years she ran the entire operation herself. Then growth forced her hand, and she hired the first of what would become a thirty-one person team.
That was the beginning of Luxe du Jour.
The Bag Spa, the Rental Service, and a Trip to Malaysia
Phan did not build a simple resale operation. She built an ecosystem.
Luxe du Jour's core business is consignment — connecting sellers of authenticated luxury pieces with verified buyers. Alongside it, she built Luxe Bag Rental, a platform that lets customers borrow rather than buy, lowering the barrier to accessing designer pieces without committing to ownership. And she built the Luxe Bag Spa: a restoration division that accounts for approximately fifteen percent of company revenue.
The restoration service required a specific investment. Phan flew to Malaysia and took a one-on-one course in the delicate art of luxury bag restoration — the techniques for conditioning leather, restoring hardware, addressing colour transfer, and returning worn pieces to near-original condition. She brought those skills back to Calgary and trained her team.
The Luxe Bag Spa is not an afterthought. It is a competitive advantage: the ability to source pieces that other resellers would pass over, restore them to a standard that justifies premium pricing, and deliver something that the original consignment market simply cannot. For clients who want to sell bags that have seen use, it eliminates a barrier. For buyers, it provides confidence.
The company's Calgary head office sits alongside a second head office in Irvine, California — opened in March 2023 — with satellite operations in Vancouver, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Thailand. The geographic spread reflects where the luxury resale market actually lives: North America and Southeast Asia.
Thirty Million Dollars and a $13M Series B
Luxe du Jour generated approximately $30 million CAD in its most recent reported year. In May 2025, the company announced plans to raise $13 million in a Series B funding round — more than double the $5 million Series A it closed in 2023, which Phan says doubled the company's sales following that injection.
"We raised our Series A with one of our investors, a billionaire from Vancouver, and ever since that injection of cash, we doubled our sales," Phan told Retail Insider. "So we know it takes money to make more money."
The Series B is targeted at retail expansion. The company's Irvine office already includes a mini showroom, and the Yorkville pop-up in Toronto that ran through late 2024 validated the model in a second major Canadian market. Phan sees full-scale retail showrooms in Toronto, Miami, and New York as a copy-and-paste opportunity: historical data shows that luxury retail storefronts typically increase regional online sales by thirty to forty percent. Even one well-positioned showroom could catalyze the next doubling.
For a company that started with fifty bags on Instagram and zero capital, the trajectory is a case study in what a clear understanding of market friction — and the patience to build around it rather than accept it — can produce. Consignment stores wanted forty percent. Phan built the alternative. Now she's building the showrooms.
Key takeaways
- Luxe du Jour was founded by native Calgarian Tammy Phan in 2016 with zero capital — she posted fifty luxury handbags on Instagram and built Canada's leading pre-owned luxury platform from there.
- The company generates approximately $30 million CAD annually with 31 employees and offices in Calgary, Vancouver, Irvine CA, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Thailand.
- The Luxe Bag Spa restoration division, which Phan launched after personally training in Malaysia, accounts for roughly fifteen percent of company revenue and allows the platform to source and resell pieces other resellers pass over.
- In May 2025, Luxe du Jour announced a $13 million Series B fundraise targeting North American retail expansion — historical data shows luxury storefronts increase regional online sales by thirty to forty percent.
- The company raised a $5 million Series A in 2023 from a Vancouver billionaire investor, and Phan says that injection directly doubled sales — the rationale behind the larger Series B.
- Phan founded the business after discovering that consignment stores wanted forty percent commission and online marketplaces were full of scammers — she built the alternative she wished had existed.
Frequently asked questions
- Who founded Luxe du Jour?
- Luxe du Jour was founded by Tammy Phan, a native Calgarian who developed a passion for luxury handbags at age fourteen. She launched the company in 2016 with zero capital, starting by selling fifty bags on Instagram with her own guarantee of authenticity.
- What does Luxe du Jour sell?
- Luxe du Jour is a pre-owned luxury fashion platform specializing in designer handbags, jewellery, and accessories. Services include consignment sales, Luxe Bag Rental (renting designer bags for a period), and the Luxe Bag Spa (professional restoration of pre-owned luxury pieces). The platform operates at ldj.com.
- How much revenue does Luxe du Jour generate?
- Luxe du Jour generates approximately $30 million CAD in annual revenue. The company raised a $5 million Series A in 2023, which it credits with doubling sales, and announced plans in May 2025 to raise a $13 million Series B to fund retail expansion across North America.
- Where does Luxe du Jour operate?
- Luxe du Jour maintains head offices in Calgary, Alberta and Irvine, California, a Vancouver office, and satellite operations in Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Thailand. The company opened a Yorkville pop-up in Toronto in late 2024 and is planning full-scale retail showrooms in major North American cities.
- What is the Luxe Bag Spa?
- The Luxe Bag Spa is Luxe du Jour's in-house luxury handbag restoration division, accounting for approximately fifteen percent of company revenue. Founder Tammy Phan personally travelled to Malaysia to train in luxury bag restoration and brought those techniques back to teach her Calgary team. The service allows the company to restore pre-owned pieces to near-original condition.
- Is Luxe du Jour a sustainable business?
- Luxe du Jour was founded with sustainability as a core principle — the pre-owned luxury model extends the life of high-quality goods rather than creating demand for new production. The company launched in 2016 with the explicit goal of bringing sustainability to the luxury market.
← Back to PRC Newsroom · Public Relations Canada
Enable JavaScript to view the interactive version of this page.