What it’s actually like
Luv Luxe is the Fifth Avenue shop for designer handbags that have already had one owner. It sits in Suite C at 7111 East Fifth Avenue, in the same building as Citizen Public House and the watch and jewelry bench at GemTime, and the cases hold what you would expect from the top floor of a department store: Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Hermès and the other houses whose bags hold their value. The difference is that every piece has been bought, inspected and priced by the people standing behind the counter.
The business belongs to founder Sydnie Cadenas, and the origin story is a practical one. A client in financial trouble sold her a Louis Vuitton bag in rough condition; she resold it at a profit and recognized a market. Luv Luxe has been in the Valley for more than a decade since, and its model is the opposite of consignment: the shop buys bags outright and pays immediately, which means it carries all the risk of a fake and has built its whole operation around not taking one.
That operation is the real product. Each bag is professionally authenticated, condition-graded and hand-selected. The shop uses its own authentication team and third-party verification, reads date codes, examines stitching, thread color and lettering, and since 2021 has used a scanner for the microchips in newer bags. In 2025 the store expanded to hold more inventory and added a seating area for shopping companions, which on a street of small rooms is a real courtesy.
What to buy
A classic from one of the big three. A Chanel flap, a Louis Vuitton monogram, a Hermès if one is in. The value of resale is clearest on the bags that never go out of style.
A smaller accessory. The entry ticket for anyone who wants a designer name without a handbag price.
Nothing, yet. If you have a bag at home you no longer carry, a selling appointment is often the better first visit.
Parking, timing and the practical stuff
The shop is in the 7111 building on the Fifth Avenue shops curve west of Scottsdale Road. Street spaces on Fifth go to regulars; use the free public garage on the Fifth Avenue side near the canal or the Civic Center garage off Drinkwater Boulevard and walk. The Old Town on foot note maps the loop and the Downtown & 5th Ave guide covers the district.
The store keeps daytime hours seven days a week, closing a little later on Fridays and Saturdays and opening late on Sundays. Stock is one of a kind and moves, so check the website before driving in for a specific bag. The shop also offers financing.
Selling. Luv Luxe buys directly from the public. Submit photos through the Sell With Us page or book an in-store appointment, and bring whatever packaging and paperwork came with the bag; expect identity checks, part of the same caution that protects buyers.
Comparison shopping. Vintage by Misty, at the western end of Fifth, is the street’s other luxury resale address, with a deeper archive of vintage clothing alongside its bags and scarves. The two make an easy pair on one walk.
Eat while you’re there
Citizen Public House is in the same building, and its chopped salad is the obvious lunch. Cartel Roasting Co. is a few doors along for coffee, Berdena’s is the tiny coffee bar further down Fifth, and FnB in Craftsman Court is where a successful sale gets celebrated.
How it got here
Fifth Avenue was laid out in the early 1950s to sell a western resort town to people with money and a winter to spend, and fashion has always been part of the street. For most of its history that meant resort clothes, Southwestern jewelry and the occasional couture boutique serving the hotels nearby. Designer handbags arrived on the avenue in a different form: secondhand, authenticated, and sold by specialists.
The resale trade grew into a serious business in the 2010s as the value of classic bags from Chanel, Louis Vuitton and Hermès climbed and online marketplaces filled with counterfeits. Shops that could guarantee authenticity in person became valuable precisely because the internet could not, and Old Town, with its concentration of visitors and its wealthy north Scottsdale customer base, was a natural place for them. Vintage by Misty had opened at the western end of Fifth in 2009; Luv Luxe built its business in the Valley over the following decade.
What set Luv Luxe apart was the decision to buy outright. Consignment lets a shop pass risk back to the seller; buying with immediate payment means the shop eats any mistake. Sydnie Cadenas built the authentication process to match, layering in-house experts with third-party checks and, from 2021, scanning microchips in newer bags. In a 2024 KJZZ report she described the details counterfeiters struggle with, from stitching and thread color to lettering.
The 2025 expansion of the Fifth Avenue store, with more room for inventory and a place for companions to sit, was framed by the founder as growing alongside an evolving Old Town. In the 7111 building, next to a gastropub and a watch repair bench, it is a good example of how the 1950s shopping street keeps finding new versions of its oldest business: selling fine things, carefully chosen, to people who came here to spend a little.