A black leather Hermès Birkin handbag once owned by Jane Birkin has become the most expensive bag ever sold at auction, fetching €8.58 million (approximately $10 million) at a Sotheby’s sale in Paris.
A black leather Hermès Birkin handbag once owned by Jane Birkin has become the most expensive bag ever sold at auction, fetching €8.58 million (approximately $10 million) at a Sotheby’s sale in Paris. The custom-made bag, created in the 1980s for the British-French singer and actress, attracted global interest and was sold after a ten-minute phone bidding war. Tokyo-based reseller Valuence Japan secured the winning bid and announced it will not resell the item but preserve it as a “piece of global cultural heritage.”
The sale shattered the previous auction record for a handbag—$510,000 for a Hermès Himalaya Kelly in 2021—highlighting intense demand for rare luxury items with celebrity provenance. Birkin originally sold the bag in 1994 for charity, and it had remained in private hands since. Sotheby’s did not publish a pre-sale estimate, citing the bag’s uniqueness and historical value. Jane Birkin passed away in 2023 at age 76.