Roommates, did you know the first Birkin Has the handbag was sketched on a bag of air disease? Years later, the prototype of today’s unavoidable luxury accessory was sold for $ 10.1 million (8.6 million euros). The Hermès price included costs, according to the Associated Press. The sale makes the Birkin bag the second most precious fashion article ever sold at auction. Let’s move on to history made in Paris Thursday, July 10.
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More details on Birkin’s original sale
The winning offer of 7 million euros has attracted public interns and applause. The price crushed the previous auction record for a handbag. In 2021, someone paid $ 513,040 for a Hermès White Himalaya Niloticus Crocodile Diamond returned Kelly 28.
Now, the original Birkin bag, named after the actor, singer and fashion icon for whom Hermès has created it – the late Jane Birkin – is in a new league apart. Sotheby’s said that a single fashion article has been auctioned for more: a pair of Ruby red slippers of “The Wizard of Oz”, which sold $ 32.5 million in 2024.
The Paris auction room burst into anticipation at the start of the sale. The auctioneer reminded the crowd that the bag was “totally unique” and “the most famous bag of all time”.
The auctions started at 1 million euros but increased quickly. At the end, telephone bidders were fighting. With the fees of Sotheby included, the total price of the winner of Japan was 8.6 million euros, said the auction house. From the starting price, the offers exceeded 2 million euros, then 3 million, 4 million and 5 million, to astonished dressings. When the price went from 5.5 million to 6 million euros in a single blow, there were whistles and applause. The final offers were 6.2 million euros, then 6.5 million, then 6.8 million before the last winning offer of the Japanese buyer: 7 million euros. Sotheby’s has not identified the buyer. Nine collectors bid by phone, online and in the room participated in the 10 -minute auction.
The fashion house in Paris Hermès exclusively ordered the bag for Jane Birkin, born in London, in 1984.
Hermès is famous, famous!
The handbag manufacturer marked it with its initials, JB, on the front flap, under the lock, and delivered the single bag of its kind the following year.
He was born out of an accidental meeting on a flight to London in the 1980s with the then tire of Hermès, Jean-Louis Dumas. Jane Birkin recalled in interviews that they had spoken after having overthrew some of her business on the cabin soil. Birkin asked Dumas why Hermès did not make a bigger handbag. Then, on a bag of vomit by plane, she sketched the kind of support she would like. He then had an example made for her. She was flattered and accepted when Hermès asked if he could market the bag on his behalf.
Years later, the marketed version of the Birkin bag has become one of the most exclusive luxury articles in the world. In addition to having an extravagant price, there is generally a one -year waiting list.
“There is no doubt that the original birkin bag is a real one of its kind – a singular history of fashion which has become a phenomenon of pop culture which signals luxury in the most refined way possible. 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, said Morgane Halimi, Sotheby.
The bag has become so famous that Birkin sounded once before his death in 2023 to 76 years that his ONCROLOGS “Say,” like the bag “or something like that.”
Jane Birkin obtained other brand bags
When Birkin discussed with the Dumas of Hermès on the Paris flight in London on her ideal handbag, she used to carry her things in a wicker basket. She felt that the handbags in the 1980s were too small, said Sotheby. She was traveling with her young daughter, Charlotte, and complained of not finding a bag adapted to her needs as a mother, says Hermès.
Hermès then offered her four other Birkin bags. She has kept the prototype for almost a decade, before selling it at auction for an AIDS charitable organization in 1994. It was auctioned in 2000 and has since been in private hands. The previous owner, who has only identified himself as Catherine B., told journalists at the auction that the bag “has all the attributes of a star”. “The price is the price of the story of Hermès”, “ She said. Sotheby calls him “more than a simple bag”.
“Birkin has gone from a practical accessory to become a timeless cultural icon,” he said. “His presence extends over the worlds of music, film, television and arts,” he added. “This is a must of the red carpet, a pillar of the fashion magazine and a coveted room in the cabinets of celebrities, artists and stylists.”
Associated Press John Leicester and Jeffrey Schaeffer contributed to this report via AP Newsroom.
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