Terry Prone: A designer handbag could be a good investment for your pension years

There's a whole sub-economy that revolves around selling second-hand designer handbags.

You might not want something that was designed on a sick bag, but some women out there are willing to pay a quarter of a million euro for a handbag that started out as a sketch on one of those.

It happened like this. British actor Jane Birkin was upgraded on a flight and found herself sitting beside the chief executive of luxury brand Hermes.