In an unparalleled auction, Jane Birkin‘s original custom-made Hermes bag sold for €8.6 million ($10.04 million) in Paris on Thursday.
Auctioned by Sotheby’s, the well-used bag is scratched, scuffed and stained, but it was the very first Birkin created by the French fashion house, designed for and with the Franco-British actress and singer.
The hammer came down for a winning bid of €7 million, increasing to €8.6 million with fees.
Today, standard Birkin bags sell for more than $10,000. This piece, has Birkin’s JB initials embossed on the flap. Unlike its descendants, it has a strap that cannot be removed.
Sotheby’s said the bag was bought by a private Japanese buyer over the phone, and the price was the highest on record for a fashion item.
Birth of the Birkin
According to fashion lore, the first Birkin bag was born when the actress was unknowingly sat next to Hermes executive Jean-Louis Dumas on a flight in 1984. When items spilt out of her bag, she complained that she needed a stylish yet functional carryall as a young mother.
To her surprise, her neighbour answered: “I am Hermes.” Dumas then sketched out a rectangular handbag, with a dedicated space for baby bottles. In later interviews she said sketches were drawn on the plane’s “vomit bag”.
Hermes made that handbag for her, then started selling smaller versions to the public.
“It is incredible to think that a bag initially designed by Hermes as a practical accessory for Jane Birkin, has become the most desirable bag in history and will most likely continue to be so for many years to come,” Morgane Halimi, Sotheby’s global head of handbags and accessories, said ahead of the sale.
A well-loved bag
“It was a travel bag. Clearly, it was worn for nine years by Jane Birkin on a daily basis and the form is still very beautiful,” Aurelie Vassy, the auction house’s Europe and Middle East head of handbags and accessories, told Reuters.
Birkin’s bag has changed hands more than once. It was first auctioned by the actress and singer in 1994 to support Sidaction, a French charity that fights HIV/Aids. It went on sale again in 2000, and was bought by a private French collector.
The piece has also been on show several times, at exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.
Birkin died in 2023, aged 76. In a 2000 interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, she joked: “Bless me, when I’m dead … [people] will possibly only talk about the bag.”
