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Case file s1875 · Hollywood and TV · 2023
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2023
Jane Birkin: 66ème Festival de Venise (Mostra) Jane Birkin
Jane Birkin. nicolas genin from Paris, France. CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.
Died
16 July 2023
Place
Paris, France
Field
film actor and singer · Film and television on the timeline
Legal tradition
French law · Civil law
Historical event
Sotheby's Paris auction of 10 July 2025
Hollywood and TVGiven awayNowEuropeFrance

The original Hermes bag made for Jane Birkin sold at Sotheby's Paris in July 2025 for 8.58 million euros, the highest price paid for a handbag at auction

The first Birkin bag was made for Jane Birkin by Hermes. She died in Paris in July 2023. On 10 July 2025 Sotheby's Paris sold the original bag for 8.58 million euros, about $10 million, after a bidding war, according to Bloomberg. AFP reported 8.6 million euros including fees and a hammer price of 7 million euros†. It is the most valuable handbag ever sold at auction, ahead of a Hermes Kelly that sold for about $513,000 in 2021. AFP reported that Birkin had sold the bag in 1994 at a charity auction for AIDS and that it changed hands again in 2000. Reports named a private collector based in Japan as the buyer†. The seller and any link to Birkin's estate are not stated in the sources reviewed. Outlets that reported the price in pounds were in error; the euro figure is the one most sources agree on.

What the law took from it

An item given away in life can become the most valuable object tied to a name after death.

Sources
  1. BloombergPress
  2. citizen.digitalPress
  3. gulfnews.comPress
  4. capitalfm.africaPress

Cite as: celebrity.estate, “The original Hermes bag made for Jane Birkin sold at Sotheby's Paris in July 2025 for 8.58 million euros, the highest price paid for a handbag at auction,” story s1875, https://www.celebrity.estate/jane-birkin-2023, updated 30 October 2026.

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Where this case sits

Hollywood and TVGiven awayNowEuropeCivil lawFrance