Chanel trumps cash as Greece's financial system weakens further

Athens

IN Greece's new economic order, Chanel is becoming more valuable than cash.

Banks in the nation have been shut down for more than a week and are just days away from running out of money. Many Greeks worry that at least some of their hard-earned deposits could vanish even under the best outcome of renewed negotiations between the country's leaders and its creditors over a bailout package.

Even those who have hoarded cash fear that the value of the euro will plummet, or that a return to the drachma could leave them stranded with the wrong currency.

And so 48-year-old Sophia Marcoulakis is considering converting her cash into something more stable: a designer handbag.

It's a luxury the mother of two never would have allowed herself before the banks shut down. But now she considers it an investment, a tangible possession that the government cannot take away. "You have a feeling that money has lost its value," said Ms Marcoulakis, a corporate lawye…