The original Hermès Birkin bag, once worn by the late actor and singer Jane Birkin, is heading to auction at Sotheby’s this summer.

The leather handbag inspired what would be become one of the world’s most desired, hard to acquire and priciest fashion accessories. While the auction house resells a range of secondhand Birkin bags, ranging in price from $5,000 to $220,000, there’s only one original.

“No handbag in the world carries as much cultural significance as the Hermès Birkin. But before it became the ultimate symbol of luxury, the Birkin was born out of necessity — crafted specifically for Jane Birkin herself,” Sotheby’s said in a statement Thursday announcing the auction. 

The original Hermès Birkin bag, which differs slightly form the model sold today, is on item in Sotheby’s Fashion Icons auction, which takes place in Paris from June 26 to July 10. In the meantime, the original bag, which belongs to a private collector, will be on display in at the auction house’s New York headquarters from June 6 to June 12. 

Chance encounter

Birkin, who died in 2023 at age 76, was known for her artistry and style. In addition to her songs, including recordings with celebrated singer Serge Gainsbourg, she appeared in classic films including Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 “Blow-Up.” She was also admired for her political activism, capaigning for Myanmar’s pro-democracy movement and the fight against AIDS, among other causes.

“Jane Birkin was a French icon because she was the incarnation of freedom, sang the most beautiful words of our language,” French President Emmanuel Macron wrote on social media when she died.

An errant remark from Birkin to Jean-Louis Dumas, then the head of Hermès, on an Air France flight in 1984 spawned the creation of the Birkin bag, according to Sotheby’s. At the time, Birkin complained she couldn’t find a bag big enough to accommodate her belongings for daily use. Dumas quickly sketched a bag that he would go on to make, and later name, for her. 

The bag is now made in a variety of colorways, leather types and sizes based on the prototype Dumas made for the singer. But “the Original Birkin bag is a true one-of-a-kind — a singular piece of fashion history that has grown into a pop culture phenomenon that signals luxury in the most refined way possible,” Morgane Halimi, Sotheby’s global head of handbags and fashion, said in a statement. 

Costly, not expensive?

Sotheby’s has not indicated how much the bag could fetch. A spokesperson for the auction house told CBS MoneyWatch it will provide an estimate to interested parties upon request, noting the bag’s exceptional provenance. 

By comparison, Sotheby’s sold Princess Diana’s historic black sheep sweater in 2023 for $1.1 million, 14 times its estimate of $80,000. 

In December, Hermès artistic director Pierre-Alexis Dumas, told “60 Minutes” that the fashion house’s leather goods, including the Birkin bag, are as costly as they are because the company refuses to compromise on quality or craftsmanship. He also disputed the notion that Hermès goods are “expensive,” while conceding hey are “costly” to make. 

“The cost is the actual price of making an object properly with the required level of attention, so that you have an object of quality,” Dumas told 60 Minutes in the interview. “Expensive is a product which is not delivering what it’s supposed to deliver, but you’ve paid quite a large amount of money for it, then it betrays you. That’s expensive.”

Customers have accused Hermès of deliberately limiting production of Birkin bags, a notion Dumas dismissed as a “diabolical marketing idea” that the company does not employ. Rather, he insisted, the company can’t keep up with the enduring demand for the Birkin bag, while only a few craftspeople are trained to make the item..

“Whatever we have, we put on the shelf and it goes,” he said.