Jane Birkin’s Hermès’s original bag is sold for £ 7 million at Sotheby auction

The original Birkin bag, which sets the template for perhaps the most desirable accessory in fashion history, was bought for 8.6 million euros (7.4 million British pounds; $ 10.1 million), becoming the most auctioned bag ever auctioned.

The black leather bag was made for singer Jane Birkin in 1985 after she spilled her belongings while sitting next to the head of the luxury Hermes fashion house on a flight.

She asked why they didn’t make bigger bags, so he outlined the design for a new, more practical, but still highly desirable object from the sick bag of the aircraft.

The prototype he made was sold to a private collector from Japan at Sotheby’s in Paris on Thursday, far exceeding $ 513,000 (378,000 pounds; € 439,000) previous sale.

The auction house said it had a “electrifying” 10-minute war for bidding between “nine decisive collectors”.

Morgane Halimi, a global bag of bags and fashion of Sotheby, said the price is a “startling demonstration of the power of a legend and its ability to ignite the passion and desire of collectors seeking exceptional objects of unique origin, to have their origin.”

She added: “The Birkin prototype is just that, the starting point of an exceptional story that gave us a modern icon, Birkin bag, the most desirable bag in the world.”

A total of EUR 8 582 500 includes commission and fees. Sotheby’s does not publish a score before the action.

After creating a bag for the Anglo-French singer and actress, Hermes put the bag into commercial products and she remains one of the most exclusive symbols of fashion status.

Some styles cost a lot of thousands of dollars and have lists of waiting years, such as owners, including celebrities such as Kate Moss, Victoria Beckham and Jennifer Lopez.

The original has some unique characteristics, such as the initials of Birin on the front cover, an unchanging shoulder strap, the nails she held attached to the strap, and the brands where she puts stickers for the reasons she supports, such as Médecins du Monde and Unicef.

Birkin, who died in 2023 at the age of 76, owns the original bag for a decade and donated it to a auction to raise funds for a charity AIDS charity in 1994.

He was later bought by Catherine Benia, who has a luxury boutique in Paris, who owns it for 25 years before selling it on Thursday.

Sotheby’s said the previous record price for a bag was determined by white Himalaya Niloticus Crocodile Diamond Renurne Kelly 28 in 2021.