Jane Birkin’s original Hermès bag sells for $10 million

By Jacqui Palumbo, CNN

(CNN) — Scuffed, scratched and stained, this black leather Birkin bag just sold for €8.6 million ($10 million), with fees, becoming the most expensive handbag to ever sell at auction. The hammer fell a winning bid of €7 million ($8.2 million).

The first ever Birkin to have been created by Hermès, the bag was designed for the British actor and singer Jane Birkin. The Francophone style icon used it nearly every day from 1985 to 1994, before it became the ultimate symbol of luxury. On Thursday, the rarefied bag was sold by auction house Sotheby’s in an online sale of notable luxury fashion, including designs by Alexander McQueen and Christian Dior.

The auction house declined to provide an estimate of the original Birkin to CNN ahead of the sale, but advanced bidding had already smashed records at over €1 million. During a live stream of the sale, gasps could be heard as the bidding pushed higher and higher.

In setting a definitive new record, the original Birkin beat out more opulent iterations. In 2022, Sotheby’s sold a white-diamond-studded “Diamond Himalaya Birkin” for over $450,000, while Christie’s sold a crocodile-skin version for nearly $390,000 in 2021. The previous record for the most expensive handbag was set by a diamond and crocodile Kelly bag at $513,040.

The “Original Birkin” has changed private hands more than once since Birkin herself sold it in 1994 to benefit AIDS research, though it has made public reappearances in exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

Birkin died in 2023 at the age of 76, and she predicted — jokingly — to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that people would remember her best for inspiring the coveted, capacious style, which has become one of the most recognizable and expensive accessories one can buy.

“Bless me, when I’m dead… (people) will possibly only talk about the bag,” she said.

According to Sotheby’s, the original Birkin has several distinctions from subsequent versions, such as the handbag’s size, metal rings and hardware, and shoulder strap, among other details that were never replicated. The front flap features her initials, “J.B.,” while a pair of small silver nail clippers dangle from the shoulder strap (Birkin liked her nails neatly trimmed and kept the clipper close to her for easy and frequent use, Sotheby’s said). And, of course, the timeworn bag bears the marks of Birkin’s daily life, including discoloration from two stickers from the humanitarian organizations Médecins du Monde and UNICEF.

While other Birkin aficionados may treat their pristine purchases like investments — one study in 2016 demonstrated the Birkin’s continually rising value as it outpaced both the S&P500 and the price of gold — the bag’s origins was practical in nature. In 1984, former Hermès chairman Jean-Louis Dumas happened to be seated next to Birkin herself on a flight from Paris to London. A mom to three, Birkin told him he couldn’t find a purse spacious enough to suit her needs, and had taken to carrying a large wicker basket — which accidentally fell on Dumas during the flight, according to Sotheby’s.

Birkin said she wanted a bag “half the size of my suitcase,” she recounted to Amanpour in 2020.

“He said, ‘Well, draw it for me,’ and so I drew it on one of those sick bags — the vomit bags — in the airplane,” Birkin said. Hermès delivered the bag to her in 1985, and gifted her four more over the course of her life. She received royalties from the name, but reportedly donated them each year to charities.

“It is incredible to think that a bag initially designed by Hermès 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,” said Morgane Halimi, Sotheby’s global head of handbags and accessories, in a press release ahead of the sale.

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