A Jane Birkin Hermès Bag With a Handwritten Note Heads to Auction in Paris
A black Hermès Birkin 30 once owned by the actress and singer Jane Birkin will be offered at Bonhams, the London-based auction house, in its Paris Fashion & Handbags sale on 25 November. The bag is estimated at EUR 40,000 to EUR 70,000.
The bag is a one-of-a-kind piece, made in 2009 from black Togo leather, a pebbled calfskin that Hermès, the French luxury house, uses for many of its bags. Birkin wrote a note on the inside in white pen and signed it, so the bag carries a personal message as well as the maker's mark. WWD reports that the note reads, in English: "Georgia, So that you may be safe, for us, your friends. Jane B (Birkin) Athens."
That note explains the bag's history. In April 2010, Birkin gave it to her friend Georgia in Athens. The Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland had erupted a few weeks earlier, and the ash cloud had cancelled flights across Europe, which is the reason the message carries a wish for safe travel.
Hubert Felbacq, director of the fashion and accessories department at Bonhams in Paris, leads the team that will sell the bag. The auction house is part of a wider push in Paris, where Bonhams held a fine jewellery sale on 29 October.
The Birkin itself has a long story. Hermès, which makes the bag by hand, says it began with a 1983 meeting between Jean-Louis Dumas, then the company's chief executive, and Birkin, who had complained on a flight about not finding a bag that suited her. The bag took its name from her, and it has since become one of the most recognised handbags in the world. The brand sells it in several standard sizes, including the 25 and the 30.
Bonhams has sold Birkin bags once before. In 2021 it sold a black Togo Birkin 35 that Birkin had owned, dated 1999, for GBP 119,000. That was well above its pre-sale estimate of GBP 15,000 to GBP 20,000. In 2022 it sold a Birkin 30 from 2014 that had also belonged to her.
Results at auction depend on how many bidders want an object on the day, so an estimate is a guide rather than a promise. Bonhams sets it before the sale, and the final price can land above or below the range. At the October jewellery sale in Paris, a Cartier sapphire and diamond ring reached EUR 205,400 against an estimate of EUR 40,000 to EUR 60,000. A circa-1940 Cartier brooch from the collection of Madame Paulette reached EUR 83,800 against an estimate of EUR 15,000 to EUR 20,000.
For most buyers, the bag is also a piece of paper and ink. The handwritten words are what separate it from the other Birkins that come up for sale each year. Whether that personal note is worth more to a collector than the leather and the hardware is a question the sale will answer on 25 November.
