It's not a bag, it's a Birkin...

As Sotheby’s auctions off the prototype, inspired by film star Jane Birkin, Annabel Nugent looks into the bag’s history, the world of counterfeits, and ways to secure the genuine article

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There have been two occasions in my life during which I have touched a Hermes Birkin bag. The first time I was seven years old; a friend of my mum’s came over for lunch and around her wrist was a tan leather tote with stiff steep handles like two hills of a rollercoaster, and silver hardware centred around a simple lock closure. Throughout the lunch, she kept the bag in her lap, occasionally reaching down to pet it as though it were a puppy. At seven, I’d have been more excited if it were a little dog.

As the years passed, I’ve come to understand the significance behind a Birkin – why a woman in her thirties might be more excited by the prospect of a bag than a dog. Inspired by the French screen star and style icon Jane Birkin, the bag – which starts at $10,000 and runs upwards of $100,000 – was launched in 1984, but didn’t become truly famous until 2001 when an episode of Sex and the City chronicled Samantha’s ill-fated attempts to secure one (“It’s not a bag, it’s a Birkin!”). In 2008, Michael Tonello wrote a bestselling book titled Brin ng Home the Birkin: My Life in Hot Pursuit of the World’s Most Coveted Handbag.

To this day, the Birkin is seen and namechecked in songs, TV shows and films ad nauseum. It’s become shorthand in pop culture for the mega-wealthy with taste. Now, Sotheby’s is auctioning the original Birkin prototype made for the late actor who died in 2023.

The holy grail of bags, this one is black with brass hardware and will be sold as part of a Paris Fashion Icons sale held by the auction house on 10 July in Manhattan. “Obviously it is a one-ofa-kind piece, completely apart from any other handbag, or any other Birkin,” Morgane Halimi, the global head of handbags and fashion at Sotheby’s, told The New York Times.