Little did actress and singer Jane Birkin know that a casual remark about the need for a spacious, practical bag on a flight from Paris to London (Idea sketched at 30,000 ft). On the other end of that conversation was then-Hermès president Jean-Louis Dumas, who took the feedback and turned it into the world’s most coveted and legendary handbag. Now, forty years later, the original Birkin, first designed in 1984 for Jane Birkin, sold in Paris for a record $8.2 million. Yes, you’re correct in guessing it is officially the most expensive handbag ever sold.
The sale happened during Sotheby’s Fashion Icons auction, with the iconic auction house dubbing the arm candy the ‘Mona Lisa’ of handbags. As interesting as the object being auctioned was the auction itself. The coveted luxury item was being eyed by none other than the newly married Lauren Sánchez Bezos, and allegedly even her friend Kris Jenner (who has a dedicated Hermes closet) was on the phone bidding for the holy grail of handbags.
Unfortunately for them, according to the Instagram account @stylenotcom, the bag went to an enthusiastic Japanese collector who emerged winner after a 13-minute battle of the bag. While it sold for €7 million, the buyer had to pay no less than the final price of the black Birkin was a whopping $10 million, including taxes, 10 times more than the starting price of $1 million, shared Hola.
What makes Jane Birkin’s very own handbag so special is that Hermès built a one-off in black Box calf, branded “J.B.” under the lock. It combines the height/width of the later Birkin 35 with the depth of a Birkin 40 and has a non-removable shoulder strap, features never repeated. Birkin used her Birkin in a rather carefree fashion, festooning it with stickers, talismans, and even a nail-clipper. Something women wouldn’t even dream of today, considering the skyrocketed value and the bag being compared to art, with astronomical prices reaching $450,000 for rare specimens.
Even MoMA and the Victoria & Albert Museum treated it as an artifact, blurring lines between fashion and art. Now the bag is in the ownership of a Japanese collector who will perhaps reveal it to the world once again or maybe not.
