A bag for the ages: Original Birkin auctioned for $15.3 million

A handbag created for the English singer and actress Jane Birkin by the French luxury label Hermès has become the ultimate status symbol after selling for €8.6m ($15.3 million) at auction in Paris.

A 10-minute bidding war at Sotheby’s, reportedly involving newlywed Lauren Sanchez Bezos, started at €1 million and ended with a private collector from Japan placing the winning bid by phone.

The original Birkin at Sotheby’s, Paris was made for Birkin in 1984.Credit: AP

Even with the notoriously long waiting lists for Hermès’ Birkin handbags, carried by various Kardashians, Victoria Beckham and Australian publicist Roxy Jacenko, $15.3 million is a big price to pay for jumping the queue.

Reports on entry-level prices for Birkin bags vary from $15,000 to $30,000, depending on availability, size and the leather used.

It’s the second time Birkin, who died in 2023, has caused a global sensation. In 1969, the breathy and suggestive song Je T’Aime… Moi Non-Plus, (I Love You... Me Neither), recorded with her then partner Serge Gainsbourg, was denounced by a Vatican newspaper and forbidden in Italy.

Her original Birkin bag trails Judy Garland’s ruby slippers from the 1939 movie The Wizard Oz, which in December fetched $US32.5 million ($49.3 million) at auction in Dallas, as the second most valuable fashion item ever sold. Last month a hat that had belonged to Napoleon Bonaparte was auctioned for the bargain price of €355,600.

The big difference is that you don’t see people today queueing to buy ruby slippers or bicorne hats.

The Birkin bag has a mythology rivalling its maker, the French luxury goods company Hermès, founded in 1837 and valued at €243.65 billion in April. It was created in 1984, after Birkin found herself upgraded on an Air France flight to a seat beside Jean-Louis Dumas, chief executive and artistic director of his family’s brand Hermès.

After hearing how Birkin’s then partner, filmmaker Jacques Doillon, had deliberately run over her signature wicker basket in his car, Dumas designed a practical, streamlined bag for the working mother.

The death of the enduring fashion muse in 2023 set the wheels for the record Sotheby’s sale in motion.

“Having a Hermès bag named after you says it all,” celebrity stylist Jess Pecoraro, who has worked with Jesinta Franklin and Pip Edwards, said at the time of Birkin’s death. “My first thought when she died was that the bag is going to go up in price again.”

The Birkin prototype was sold through Sotheby’s by a collector known only as Catherine B and is embossed with the initials JB. Birkin had donated the bag to a charity auction in 1994, benefiting a French AIDS organisation.

It differs from other Birkins with its unique size, shoulder strap and brass, rather than gold-plated, hardware. It’s also markedly different from bags carried by today’s social media socialites, with its traces of stickers. Jane Birkin used her bag as a tote rather than a trophy.

The Birkin bag didn’t become a widely recognised status symbol until the It-bag era of the nineties, crashing into popular culture alongside Manolo Blahnik heels and pink tutus in the Sex and the City television series. In the 2001 episode Coulda, Woulda Shoulda, Kim Cattrall’s character Samantha Jones uses her client Lucy Liu’s name to try and jump the bag’s waiting list. “It’s not a bag, it’s a Birkin,” Jones famously said.

A few years later, Birkin worship arrived in Australia. In the early 2000s I remember dining with a former Vogue staff member who requested a separate seat for her white Birkin bag. The waiter at Otto restaurant at Woolloomooloo wharf complied. The bag even received its own napkin, as a cushion.

Today, the Birkin bag’s scarcity and price tag continues to fuel its desirability. They are an investment, which is why you don’t see many stickers on their surface or Labubu dolls swinging from their handles.

“The ultimate classic handbag, the Hermès Birkin in black Togo leather, is now more valuable than ever when sold on the secondary market,” Knight Frank’s The Wealth Report 2025 report said. The report shows handbags were the best-performing luxury asset class in 2024.

A white Birkin bag is currently available from auction site 1stDibs for $53,541.

The original Birkin’s sale demonstrates that handbags are now a greater status symbol than tiaras. A Cartier turquoise and diamond tiara owned by Lady Astor sold for £889,400 ($1,835,913) last month in the UK. The Aquamarine Tiara worn by Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh to this week’s state banquet at Windsor Castle for the French President Emmanuel Macron, is estimated to have cost £1 million.

Diamonds may be forever, but Birkin bags are for now.

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