In the past seven years 348 have been auctioned versus 1,074 Kelly bags, according to a report by Collector Square. The most expensive bag ever to go under the hammer, according to WWD, was a red Porosus crocodile Birkin with 18-carat white-gold and diamond ‘hardware’, sold for $203,150 (£129,355) at auction in Dallas in 2011. And the Birkin’s limited availability has undoubtedly helped its success at auction. They don’t take orders any more you just have to hope,” says Lalande, who estimates that there are some 200,000 Birkins in circulation. Thirty years on from its launch, demand is such that there is no longer a waiting list for the bag, in the classic sense of the term. “Hundreds and hundreds” of Kellys and Birkins have passed through his hands during his career, as both a long-time collaborator of Hermès, sourcing items for the house’s museums, and the bag-and-luggage expert at second-hand luxury goods specialists Collector Square, an e-boutique with a showroom on Rue Bonaparte in Paris.Īccording to Lalande, the Birkin wasn’t an immediate hit: it only really took off in the late ’90s, at the dawn of the It-bag era. “It opened Hermès up to new markets and customers, but it also changed the typical Hermès client,” says Jérôme Lalande, an antique dealer specialising in 20th-Century leather goods. The Birkin arguably played a major role in making Hermès the fashionable house it is today. The only other Hermès bag to carry a celebrity moniker, their Sac à Dépêches, was renamed in 1956 after Grace Kelly was snapped using it to shield her pregnant belly, having first been introduced to the item on the set of Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief. Up until that point, the Kelly bag – ladylike, stiff and boxy by comparison – epitomised Hermès’ world. The rest is handbag history.Ī roomy, elegant-yet-sporty bag with handles designed to be carried in the hand or on the wrist, with four studs on the base, the Birkin represented a new, modern statement from a fashion house known for its traditional, classical stance. As she recounted to The Telegraph in 2012, the actress ended up doodling her specifications for “a handbag that is bigger than the Kelly but smaller than Serge ’s suitcase” on a sick bag. Birkin, who had been upgraded, ended up sitting next to the executive when the contents spilled out of her bag, Dumas suggested she needed one with pockets, and this sparked a conversation about her ideal accessory. Its existence was a happy accident, borne out of an exchange between Birkin and former Hermès chief executive Jean-Louis Dumas on an Air France flight from Paris to London in the early ’80s. Even more heinous.)Ĭreated in 1984, the iconic bag boasts as its namesake muse Paris-based British actress Jane Birkin. (When the smoke had cleared, it was claimed the bag was, in fact, imitation. In 2012, a $100,000 (£63,675) crocodile-skin Birkin was reportedly set on fire (then bisected by chainsaw) by Francesca Eastwood, daughter of Clint, in a so-called art project conceived by her photographer boyfriend, Tyler Shields – an act that reportedly led to death threats. Victoria Beckham is rumoured to own around 100, costing around a cool £1.5m ($2.3m).Īmong other celebrities with Birkins to burn, Kim Kardashian has been chastised for using one as a gym bag, ditto Kate Moss – as a nappy bag.
When it comes to handbag hierarchy, the Hermès Birkin – the ultimate status symbol in the arm-candy stakes, with a starting price around £5,600 ($8,500), rising every year – continues to rule the roost, as the prized possession of the deep-pocketed few.