Jane Birkin’s original Hermès bag sells for $10 million

Scuffed, scratched and stained, this black leather Birkin bag just sold for €8.6 million ($10 million), with fees, becoming the most expensive handbag to ever sell at auction. The hammer fell at a winning bid of €7 million ($8.2 million).

The first ever Birkin to have been created by Hermès, the bag was designed for the British actor and singer Jane Birkin. The Francophone style icon used it nearly every day from 1985 to 1994, before it became the ultimate symbol of luxury. On Thursday, the rarefied bag was sold by auction house Sotheby’s in an online sale of notable luxury fashion, including designs by Alexander McQueen and Christian Dior.

The auction house declined to provide an estimate of the original Birkin to CNN ahead of the sale, but advanced bidding had already smashed records at over €1 million. During a live stream of the sale, gasps could be heard as the bidding pushed higher and higher.

In setting a definitive new record, the original Birkin beat out more opulent iterations. In 2022, Sotheby’s sold a white-diamond-studded “Diamond Himalaya Birkin” for over $450,000, while Christie’s sold a crocodile-skin version for nearly $390,000 in 2021. The previous record for the most expensive handbag was set by a diamond and crocodile Kelly bag at $513,040.

The “Original Birkin” has changed private hands more than once since Birkin herself sold it in 1994 to benefit AIDS research, though it has made public reappearances in exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.