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A battered Birkin bag is now the most expensive handbag ever sold at $10 million

This Birkin was the very first handbag designed by Hermès for British actor and singer Jane Birkin in 1984.

The original Birkin bag, named after the actor, singer and fashion icon that Hermès created it for — the late Jane Birkin — is up for auction in Paris (AP)

A battered black leather Birkin bag just became the most expensive handbag ever sold, fetching €8.6 million (Rs 86.19 crore) including fees at a Sotheby’s auction. The winning bid of €7 million capped a ten-minute bidding war between nine collectors and was won by a private buyer in Japan, according to Sotheby’s.

This wasn’t just any Birkin. It was the original: the very first handbag designed by Hermès for British actor and singer Jane Birkin in 1984. Used by her nearly every day from 1985 to 1994, the bag helped birth what would become one of the most iconic fashion items in the world.

Sotheby’s did not reveal an estimate ahead of the sale, but early bidding had already soared past €1 million. During the livestream, gasps erupted as the price climbed, culminating in the record-breaking sale on Thursday. Morgane Halimi, Sotheby’s global head of handbags and accessories, called the moment “an important milestone” in the history of fashion and luxury, saying it showed “the power of a legend and its capacity to ignite the passion and desire of collectors.”

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Though scratched, stained, and scuffed, the handbag’s imperfections only added to its appeal. A pair of silver nail clippers still dangle from its shoulder strap as Birkin liked to keep her nails neatly trimmed, and the bag’s leather bears the fading outlines of two stickers from Médecins du Monde and UNICEF. Her initials “J.B.” are stamped on the front flap. These were all details unique to her personal use and never replicated in later editions.

It’s not the first time the bag has changed hands. Birkin herself auctioned it off in 1994 to raise funds for AIDS research. It appeared in public exhibitions at New York’s Museum of Modern Art and London’s Victoria & Albert Museum. Its most recent seller, identified only as Catherine B, last purchased it at auction 25 years ago. “It made me relive my own bidding battle… and how raw and indescribable the feeling of winning over this wonderful bag was,” she said in a Sotheby’s statement.

The new record blows past previous high-water marks for luxury handbags.

In 2022, Sotheby’s sold a white-diamond-studded “Diamond Himalaya Birkin” for over $450,000. Christie’s had earlier sold a crocodile-skin Birkin for nearly $390,000, and the previous record, held by a diamond and crocodile Kelly bag, stood at $513,040.

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But this bag’s value lies not in opulence, but origin. In 1984, Birkin was on a flight from Paris to London when the contents of her large wicker basket, which she used as a substitute handbag, spilled onto her neighbour, who turned out to be then-Hermès chairman Jean-Louis Dumas.

She complained that she couldn’t find a purse large enough for her needs. “He said, ‘Well, draw it for me,’ and so I drew it on one of those sick bags — the vomit bags — in the airplane,” she later recalled to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.

The company delivered the finished bag to her the following year and gifted her four more over the course of her life. Though she received royalties from the Birkin name, she donated them to charity annually.