The Original Hermès Birkin Bag Is Up for Auction

Perhaps fashion’s most legendary bag is going up for sale, and we’re not talking about a listing on TheRealReal. This summer, Jane Birkin’s original Birkin bag—yes, the one laden with scratches and sticker marks—is up for auction for the first time in 25 years as part of Sotheby’s “Fashion Icons” sale.

The OG Birkin was created for its namesake in 1984, following a run-in on an Air France flight with former Hermès CEO Jean-Louis Dumas. The singer and actor explained her preference for large bags to the businessman (at the time she famously used a wicker bag to store her essentials) who created a prototype for Birkin shortly after the encounter.

That same bag, which features a shoulder strap that was not included in the commercial version, is the one headed for auction. According to Sotheby’s, “the bag is presented in the exact condition in which it was last used by Jane.”

But before the keepall finds a new owner, it will go on display at Sotheby’s flagship location in New York, from June 6 to 10, and at the organization’s Paris galleries, from July 3 to 9. Previously, the item had only been publicly displayed twice, at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 2018 and at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum in London two years later.

Birkin, who passed away in 2023, donated the piece to the French AIDS charity, Association Solidarité Sida, in 1994. It was purchased six years later by a Parisian collector, Catherine Benier.

Now, as for who might snag the piece and how much it will ultimately sell for remains to be seen.

“At this stage we will communicate it privately to potential bidders,” Morgane Halimi, the global head of handbags and fashion for Sotheby’s, told the New York Times. “Obviously it is a one-of-a-kind piece, completely apart from any other handbag, or any other Birkin.”

Halimi continued, “We are breaking records with Birkin bags on a regular basis at auction. We foresee it to be as unique as the Diana jumper or a worn jersey from the N.B.A. It has value because of what it is and what has happened because of that bag.”