Overview

• Sotheby’s Paris auction on July 10 saw the first-ever Birkin bag sell for €8.58 million, more than doubling the previous handbag auction record.
• Jane Birkin and then-Hermès artistic director Jean-Louis Dumas sketched the design on an airplane vomit bag in 1984, leading to this unique one-off prototype.
• Distinctive features include a non-detachable shoulder strap, gilded brass hardware, Éclair zippers, embossed initials “J. B.” and an attached nail clipper.
• Catherine Benier consigned the bag after acquiring it in 2000; Jane Birkin had originally auctioned it in 1994 to benefit AIDS charities.
• The confidential sale underscores Hermès’s controlled scarcity strategy and the auction market’s premium on cultural legacy and provenance.