In its first market appearance in twenty-five years, Jane Birkin’s original Hermès Birkin bag created a sensation at Sotheby’s in Paris this afternoo🍨n, selling for €8.6 million / $10.1 million and becoming the most valuable handbag ever sold at auction.
Afteꦗr weeks of anticipation, the bidding opened at €1 million ($1.7 million) — prompting a gasp from the room. With that single bid, the world record for a handbag — set in 2021 by the Hermès White Him𝐆alaya Niloticus Crocodile Diamond Retourne Kelly 28 at $513,040 — was instantly eclipsed.
What followed was an electrifying 10-minute bidding battle between 9 determined coll🐷ectors, with bids coming in over the phones, online, and in the room. In the end, the handbag that change🏅d fashion history was met with applause as it sold to a private collector from Japan.
