Overview

• The original Birkin prototype sold at Sotheby’s Paris on July 10, 2025, for €8,582,500, establishing the highest auction price ever paid for a handbag.
• Hermès CEO Jean Louis Dumas collaborated with Jane Birkin on the design during a 1984 flight and delivered the bag in 1985 with her approval to bear her name.
• Jane Birkin donated the prototype to an AIDS research auction in 1994, and collector Catherine Bernier bought it in 2000 before consigning it for this sale.
• Distinctive characteristics such as a fixed shoulder strap, brass hardware, an integrated nail clipper, embossed JB initials and a rare 35×40 cm size set the prototype apart from later Birkins.
• The bag has appeared publicly only four times: at New York’s MET (2017–18), London’s Victoria & Albert Museum (2020) and Sotheby’s exhibitions in Paris (October 2024) and Hong Kong (April 2025).