Hermès’ Legendary Original Birkin Bag Sells for $10 Million at Auction

The iconic Birkin bag has fetched an astonishing €8.58 million ($10 million) at auction, highlighting the persistent allure of luxury items.

This black leather Hermès handbag, created around four decades ago for the late singer and actress Jane Birkin, was the star of a heated bidding war that lasted over 10 minutes at Sotheby’s in Paris on Thursday. Valuence Japan, a luxury goods reseller based in Tokyo, confirmed it was the buyer, with bids placed via telephone, according to the auction house.

This auction set a new benchmark for handbag sales, surpassing the previous record of a rare Himalaya Kelly bag made from crocodile leather and embellished with a diamond, which sold for HK$4 million ($510,000) at a Christie’s auction in 2021.

The original Birkin bag was commissioned in 1984 by Jean-Louis Dumas, the then CEO of Hermès International SCA, specifically for Jane Birkin, with delivery taking place a year later.

Birkin shared in interviews how she met Dumas on a flight and voiced her dissatisfaction with the lack of a sufficiently large Hermès handbag. She memorably sketched her idea on a “vomit bag” during that trip, leading to the brand presenting her with a prototype the following year.

Eventually, the bag bearing her name was commercialized, though subsequent models did not replicate the original’s features.

Birkin auctioned her handbag in 1994 to benefit an AIDS charity and it was sold again in 2000. Since then, it has been owned by a collector known as “Catherine B” on Instagram.

“Today it’s the most sought-after bag that everyone aspires to own,” she remarked before the auction, disclosing that she had stored it in a temperature-controlled secure environment for the past 25 years, taking it out only for special occasions. The seller chose to keep her family name confidential.

Valuence indicated in a statement that the bag was meant for secure storage and display as a piece of “global cultural heritage,” rather than for resale.

Hermès bags generally fetch higher prices on the resale market compared to their original retail prices due to long waiting lists. Sotheby’s refrained from providing estimates for the bag’s expected auction price ahead of Thursday’s event.

© 2025 Bloomberg

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