Original Birkin Bag Crafted For Jane Birkin Heads to Auction

• Jane Birkin’s original 1985 Birkin is going to auction July 10.
• Expected to break the Birkin price record of over USD$450,000.
• Custom prototype: unique size, hardware, and non-removable shoulder strap.
• Includes original charity auction certificate signed by Jane Birkin.
• Exhibited at MoMA and V&A museums before entering private collection.

Likely to become the most expensive Birkin bag ever sold, Sotheby’s is auctioning off the Original Birkin Crafted For Jane Birkin in 1985 at an auction on July 10th, 2025. While auction estimates are withheld, the bag will likely eclipse the USD$450,000 plus sales price of the Diamond Himalaya Birkin 30, which sold at Sotheby’s in 2022.

It’s not often that handbags carry provenance, but this Birkin is different. The story goes that the actress was sitting alongside Jean-Louis Dumas, the French billionaire businessman who was the chairman of the Hermès group from 1978 to 2006, on an Air France flight. She complained that she couldn’t find a bag big enough for daily life, so the brand designed one and asked if they could name it after her.

The rest is history, as they say. Now, her original bag is headed to auction, and it carries serious provenance not just from Jane Birkin, but from those who have held onto the bag since she donated it at Millon, Paris, Les enchéres de I’espoir, Association Solidarité Sida on Wednesday, October 5, 1994, Théâtre de l’Empire. It was sold in Poulain Le Fur, Paris, on Friday, May 12 2000 (lot 70) and has sat in a private collection (and museums) ever since.

What’s interesting about this Birkin is that it’s a prototype. There are key differences between this and the bag that would eventually hit the production run in 1985, including:

• It has the width and height of a Birkin 35, but the depth of a Birkin 40
  • Size: 36 x 27 x 21 cm: W
• It features closed pontet rings, whereas rings remained open at the bottom until the early 1990s
• There’s gilded brass hardware, replaced by gold-plated hardware (with a check mark) at launch
• “Eclair” branded inner zip, which was replaced by Riri Company in the 1990s
• Smaller bottom studs, or “feet”
• It has a non-removable shoulder strap, the only one of its kind

Not only is this bag made in a one-off custom size, but it comes in the same condition in which it was auctioned for charity by Jane Birkin. That means that you’re getting a bag that was crafted for the namesake and lovingly used by the namesake until it was passed on, and it comes in the same condition as it hasn’t been used since. Heck, it’s even branded with her initials, J.B., and inside is the nail clipper that she kept hanging from the bag’s strap.

The lucky buyer will also recieve the original certificate of the charity auction “Les Enchères de l’Espoir,” which was signed by Jane Birkin, 5 October 1994 alongside the original Hotel des Ventes du Palais auction catalogue, Poulain Le Fur, 12 Mai 2000, and exhibition catalog ‘Bags Inside Out’, V&A, 2020.

Given the provenance of this bag, it was exhibited at the MoMA in New York for the ” Items: Is Fashion Modern?,” exhibition in 2018 before it was sent to London’s Victoria and Albert Museum for the “Bags Inside Out” exhibition in 2020.

Now, it’s hitting the auction block at Sotheby’s on July 10th, 2025, where it will likely make history as the most expensive Birkin ever sold.