It cost a whole bag of money.
The original Hermès Birkin handbag made for actress, singer and fashion icon Jane Birkin in 1984 has sold at auction for a staggering €7 million ($8.18 million).
With fees, the anonymous bidder from Japan paid a total of €8.58 million ($10 million), making it the most expensive handbag auction in history.
Sotheby’s auctioned off the item in Paris during a tense bidding session between nine collectors that lasted for 10 minutes, Forbes reports.
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Previously, the most expensive handbag ever sold at auction was a Himalaya Crocodile Birkin, which went for $450,000 back in 2022.
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Jane Birkin — who died in 2023 — used the bag almost every day before she sold it in 1994 to benefit AIDS research.
In 2000, the coveted accessory again changed hands — sold to French collector Catherine Benier for an undisclosed sum at a private auction.
Benier has kept the handbag for the past 25 years, according to CNN. In a press release, she said Thursday’s auction “made me relive my own bidding battle … and how raw and indescribable the feeling of winning over this wonderful bag was.”
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The allure around the original Birkin bag is hard to overstate.
“This is the bag. Mother of all ‘It’ bags, really,” author Marisa Meltzer said of the item in a video Sotheby’s shared to social media.
The video explained the history and cultural impact of the original Birkin.
It was created for the late London-born star after she had a chance encounter with Hermès CEO Jean-Louis Dumas on an airplane.
“Jane Birkin was on a flight. She was carrying a basket. The man who she had seated next to her said, ‘You know, you should really have a better bag,’” Meltzer explained. “And it was Jean-Louis Dumas of the Hermès family.”
He sketched out the prospective tote on an airplane vomit bag, and after a few months, Birkin got a call that it was ready — and it’s the exact item being auctioned off today.
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“The most beautiful bag in the world,” editor Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele called it.
Sotheby’s curator Dr. Lucia Savi explained that wear and tear from the bag’s use only adds to its appeal.
“From the 1980s, the design of the bag is slightly changed, and what really is enduring is to almost buy a piece of history,” Savi added.
@sothebys JaneBirkin’s original #Hermès #Birkin bag is the genesis of a global cultural phenomenon. Forty years after its creation – and just days before the iconic accessory heads to auction at Sotheby’s Paris – author Marisa Meltzer, editor Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele and curator Dr. Lucia Savi explain why there’s never been another handbag quite like it. The Original Birkin is on view at #SothebysParis ahead of the live auction on 10 July. Visit Sothebys.com for more. #fashion #fashiontiktok #hermes #hermesbirkin #handbag
♬ original sound – Sotheby’s
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The famed accessory has inspired fashion enthusiasts for generations — though it remains extremely elusive.
“The problem with everyone who wasn’t Jane Birkin is that if you wanted a Birkin, you couldn’t necessarily get one — to this day,” Meltzer said. “So it became this kind of myth. The Birkin bag meant that you had made it.”
A Birkin, which is considered the “one of the most coveted objects of recent decades” is notoriously hard to get — and due to its exclusivity, people tend to spend thousands on thousands of dollars on other Hermès products before they can even think about getting a Birkin.
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That’s because while technically anyone can ask a sales associate about the elite bag, Hermès reserves it for a limited number of select customers, typically those who have a repeat purchase history with the brand.
The “formula” of the perfect “it” bag is a “mixture of craftsmanship, design as well as celebrity and also scarcity,” Savi said in the video.
While Hermès doesn’t list the retail prices of Birkin bags, according to Sotheby’s, the smallest one, the Birkin 25, costs $12,100 for a Togo leather bag at brand boutiques in the United States, while the Birkin 30 in Togo leather costs $13,300.
However, secondary market prices tend to range between $28,000 and $30,000 for one bag, though it depends on the model and material — and some can exceed $100,000.
