Jane Birkin, some time before her death in 2023 (photo from the Associated Press)
IT was, announced Jessica Kwon’s article in The Business of Fashion website, the new global record for “the most valuable handbag ever sold at auction” when style legend Jane Birkin’s original Birkin bag sold for 8.6 million Euro (about US$10.1 million) at Sotheby’s auction last July 9 in Paris. It was bought by a private Japanese collector, bidding by phone.
According to Business of Fashion, it was, said Sotheby’s global head of handbags and fashion, Morgane Halimi, “a startling demonstration of the power of a legend and its capacity to ignite the passion and desire of collectors seeking exceptional items with unique provenance.”
Much has been made of the bag inspired by the English-French actress and singer, and how it came to be. It was 1983 when Jean-Louis Dumas, Hermès chief executive, found himself in the seat next to Birkin on a flight from Paris to London. Birkin’s straw basket spewed out its contents while she was placing it in the overhead compartment, leading her to complain to Dumas (who was helping her retrieve her stuff) that she couldn’t find a good, roomy leather weekend bag. By 1984, Dumas had created a black leather bag for her: the Birkin, the same size as today’s Birkin 35.
Birkin did use the bag, which eventually became a status symbol and a prize among bag collectors, with price tags running up to half a million US dollars, and an entire industry devoted to churning out fakes. In fact, the bag had been auctioned from another private collector, known only as Catherine B, BOF reports.
A picture of the original bag, worn and scuffed, appears in the BoF website; it became that way because Birkin truly used the bag, stuffing it with flowers and freshly-baked baguettes and leaving the clasp open because it was just bursting. In fact, Birkin allegedly stopped using it when she got a bit older, because she kept filling the bag with things, making it too heavy to lug around. She also festooned it with inexpensive charms and pasted stickers on it—sacrilege to today’s status collectors who keep their Birkins spotless and well-wrapped, in temperature-controlled rooms.
Birkin sold her bag in 1994 to benefit a French AIDS charity, which in turn auctioned the bag off to raise funds, at which time it was purchased by Catherine B. It had also graced several major fashion exhibits. In yet another testament to Birkin’s principles, in 2015, she actually asked the company to please remove her name from the bag when she did not agree with the cruel methods used to acquire crocodile skin. Birkin gave in after Hermès’ reassurances—although frankly, I don’t know if there is ever really any humane way to kill a crocodile to make a bag, but that’s us.
Jane Birkin died in 2023 at age 76.
I’m not sure what she would have thought of the conspicuous consumption and occasionally tone-deaf luxury her namesake bag is identified with today. Ironically, her legacy of authenticity simply underscores how it should actually be done: You own your accessory—you never let it own you.
