Abstract
- Jane Birkin’s authentic Hermès Birkin prototype is heading to Sotheby’s public sale block.
- The design will lead the home’s Style Icons sale in Paris on July 10.
Millionaire vogue historians, this one’s for you: Jane Birkin’s authentic Hermès Birkin is heading to Sotheby’s public sale home in Paris this July.
The legendary bag, commissioned in 1984 solely for and in collaboration with Jane Birkin by then-Hermès CEO Jean-Louis Dumas, laid the groundwork for what would change into probably the most coveted vogue accent on the earth. The all-black leather-based prototype, now deemed the “Authentic Birkin,” is distinguished by seven distinctive design parts (together with a shoulder strap, gilded brass {hardware}, and a entrance flap stamped with “J.B.” initials) that by no means made it to future iterations of the Birkin.
In 1994, Jane donated the prototype to learn Affiliation Solidarité Sida, the French AIDS charity. Six years later, Catherine Benier, a Parisian classic store proprietor and collector, purchased the bag for an undisclosed quantity. Sotheby’s has not shared an estimate for the purse at public sale, both.
“There are uncommon moments on the earth of vogue when an object transcends tendencies and turns into a legend. Jane Birkin’s Authentic Birkin bag is such a second,” stated Morgane Halimi, Sotheby’s world head of purses and vogue.
Halimi likens the design to different Sotheby’s public sale objects with “equally dazzling provenance,” together with Princess Diana’s Black Sheep Sweater and Freddie Mercury’s Crown and Cloak. “Like them, the Authentic Birkin holds the potential to redefine data, however above all, our precedence is guaranteeing it finds a brand new house worthy of its iconic standing and legendary historical past.”
Forward of the sale, Sotheby’s has put the Authentic Birkin on show internationally — first in its Paris Galleries final fall after which at Sotheby’s Maison in Hong Kong earlier this yr. The bag shall be on show at Sotheby’s New York Galleries from June 6 to 12, earlier than it goes beneath the hammer throughout Sotheby’s Style Icons sale on July 10.
