The primary-ever Hermes Birkin bag offered at Sotheby’s Paris on Thursday for a record-breaking €8.6 million ($10 million), with charges, to an nameless Japanese purchaser.
Whereas Sotheby’s didn’t reveal particulars of the customer, a supply with information of the sale advised ARTnews Lauren Sanchez, the brand new Mrs. Jeff Bezos, was an nameless underbidder on the bag. (Nevertheless, a supply near Sanchez and Bezos denied that she had bid.)
A stay stream of the sale on Thursday confirmed a taut 10-minute bidding volley between 9 collectors soundtracked by gasps as paddles drove the value instantly above €1 million—the start line of superior bidding.
It’s no understatement to name the lot a cultural artifact: Because of its epochally stylish namesake, the thick-skinned, customized crafted leather-based tote has epitomized the favored creativeness of Francophone style. Afforded by few, solid by many; one Intercourse and the Metropolis storyline even centered on Samantha’s finally doomed quest for a Birkin.
The unique Birkin has handed by means of a number of non-public palms after Birkin offered it in 1994 to assist fund AIDS analysis. Nevertheless it has made just a few public appearances since, most notably in exhibitions on the Museum of Fashionable Artwork in New York and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. The bag was final supplied at public sale 25 years in the past, by a vendor named by Sotheby’s as “Catherine B,” who mentioned in a press release quoted by CNN that the sale “made me relive my very own bidding battle … and the way uncooked and indescribable the sensation of profitable over this excellent bag was.”
In a press release following Thursday’s sale, Morgane Halimi, Sotheby’s world head of purses and equipment, described the sale as “an necessary milestone” for the historical past of luxurious style.
“It’s a startling demonstration of the ability of a legend and its capability to ignite the eagerness and want of collectors searching for distinctive objects with distinctive provenance,” she mentioned within the press launch. “The sale of the Unique Birkin can also be, finally, a celebration of the enduring spirit and enchantment of its muse, Jane Birkin.”
