The First-Ever Birkin Bag, Designed for Jane Birkin, Sells at Auction for Record-Breaking Price: Photos Revealed!
The first-ever Birkin bag designed by Hermes for Jane Birkin sold at auction for a shocking price!
The bag went for €8.58 million ($12.8 million) at a Sotheby’s auction on Thursday (July 10) in Paris on July 10, breaking previous price records for a handbag, per Straits Times.
The auction featured a telephone bidding war up to €7 million, with the final sale price set at €8.58 million with commission and fees, per Sotheby’s.
The seller, Catherine Benier, who has a boutique in the upmarket 6th district of Paris, told The New York Times before the sale that the bag was the “jewel in my collection.”
The previous record sale price for a handbag at auction was set by a diamond and white gold-encrusted crocodile skin Hermes Kelly 28, which went for $513,000 in 2021 at Christie’s in Hong Kong.
“After weeks of anticipation, the bidding opened at €1 million – prompting a gasp from the room,” Sotheby’s said in a statement.
The bag is now the second-most expensive fashion item ever sold at auction, Sotheby’s said. The ruby red slippers worn by Judy Garland from The Wizard of Oz in 1939 sold for $32.5 million in 2024 in Dallas, Texas.
As the story goes, the bag came about during a Paris-London flight when Jane complained to a seatmate about not being able to find a bag that fit everything she needed as a young mom. The passenger was Jean-Louis Dumas, then head of Hermes, who created the bag for her. It has since become the “It Bag” across the world.
The original Birkin was put first up for sale by the star herself at an auction in 1994 where the proceeds went to an AIDS charity.