Another Hermes Birkin bag owned by the actor for whom it was named has been sold for a multi-million dollar price to become the second most valuable handbag ever sold.
Sotheby’s sold the Le Voyaguer Birkin bag in their Abu Dhabi sales last week.
The auction house said in a statement: “[The bag] soared to $2.9 million (estimated range of $240,000 – $440,000) after an intense bidding battle lasting more than 10 minutes and culminated in applause as the hammer fell — becoming the second most valuable handbag ever sold at auction, surpassed only by the original Hermès Birkin created for Birkin in 1985, which achieved a record-breaking $10.1 million earlier this year.”
The record for a bag was set in July this year, when the prototype from which all Birkin bags flow was sold in Paris in similarly dramatic style.
Bidding for that bag closed out at $10.1 million, a fee paid by Japanese circular fashion company Valuance, who are exhibiting the bag at their Tokyo HQ.
The big and beautiful Birkin bag was made after the actor complained to Hermes executive Jean-Louis Dumas that no bag existed to carry everything she needed as a busy, working mum.
Jane Birkin with her Voyageur bag – bulging as usual – at a fashion show. Image courtesy of Sotheby’s.
Jane Birkin sold that bag herself in 1994 for charity and was subsequently this bag by Hermes, a cycle that repeated four times in the rest of her life.
Sotheby’s said: “Le Birkin Voyageur was Jane Birkin’s everyday bag from 2003 to 2007, during which time it became an extension of her identity—worn, loved, and filled with the ordinary yet treasured objects of her life.”
The bag is inscribed in silver ink inside: “Mon Birkin bag qui m’a accompagné dans le monde entier” (My Birkin bag, my globetrotting companion”).”
This sale now cements the Birkin bags place at the top of the handbag world. The only rivals to these prices are one-off art works (Upcycled Egg Purse by Debbie Wingham for $6.7 million), or those made of extremely valuable materials like the $3.8 million 1001 Nights Diamond Purse by Mouawad.
Hermes’ Kelly bag, named for actor Grace Kelly, is also extremely collectible in special editions, and like the Birkin is hard to obtain even directly from the makers.
