Hermès, the original Birkin sold at auction for over $10 million: historic record
The first Birkin, created for Jane Birkin in 1984, fetches a record price, revealing its timeless value. A Japanese collector bought it
3' min read
3' min read
More than ten million dollars, or around 8.7 million euros. That was the record sum at which the first Birkin, custom-made in 1984 for singer Jane Birkin, was sold at auction today in Paris by Sotheby's. It was won by a private collector from Japan, who placed his bids by telephone through Maiko Ichikawa, Country Head of Sotheby's Japan, after a fierce and abrupt "battle" that lasted just 10 minutes and saw nine different bidders. The auction base was €1 million.
The handbag is one of the symbols of luxury insensitive to the passing of time, far removed from all passing fashions. Yet history has it that it was created by chance, on a Paris-London plane flight, where Jean-Louis Dumas, then president of the fashion house Hermès, found himself sitting next to singer and undisputed style icon Jane Birkin.
The history of an icon
.The latter, travelling with a capacious wicker basket woven as a bag, accidentally spilled all the contents, including an agenda, and complained to Dumas about the lack of a bag that was capacious, practical but also elegant. No sooner said than done: it was the early 1980s, and from a sketch drawn on a paper bag - one of those provided on scheduled flights - a bag was born that today costs tens of thousands of euros (for those lucky enough to get hold of it after long waiting lists and a major a priori 'selection').
The EUR 8.7 million auction and precedents
The original Birkin was sold today, 10 July 2025, in Paris at Sotheby's as part of the Fashion Icon auction, after a road show that had taken it from Hong Kong to Paris to New York. It is by far the highest price ever paid for this iconic handbag, which has already been the protagonist, in the past, of auctions that have raised hundreds of thousands of euros. An earlier Birkin 40, which belonged to the singer (but not the original one, in fact), was donated by her and sold at auction for $162,000 in 2011 to raise funds for the Red Cross, which was working to bring aid to Japan after the violent earthquake and subsequent tsunami. Nothing like the price reached by the special edition Hermès Birkin Diamond Himalaya 30 sold at auction at Sotheby's in 2022 for over 450 thousand dollars. It is a special model made of an extremely rare leather - Nilotic crocodile - with white gold hardware and decorated with diamonds. Until now, the highest amount ever paid at an auction to buy a handbag was $513,000, spent by a collector on a Kelly (the other iconic Hermès model) Himalaya.
The original bag
.The original handbag that was created in 1984 for Jane Birkin is a unique 'hybrid' version of the 35 and 40, in soft black leather, with a rectangular and spacious shape, a smooth profile and saddle-stitching. With, in addition, a space dedicated to baby bottles. And it is personalised by the singer's initials, J.B, as well as the marks left by some stickers that Jane Birkin herself had attached to the bag.
