Hermes Birkin handbag sells for £7.4m at auction | World News

A purse has offered for €8.6m (£7.4m) – changing into essentially the most beneficial ever offered at public sale.

The orginal Hermes Birkin, which had belonged to and was named after British actor and singer Jane Birkin, went underneath the hammer at Sotheby’s in Paris on Thursday.

Additionally it is now the second costliest style merchandise ever offered.

The bag was designed for Birkin, who starred in quite a few French and British movies from the Sixties onwards earlier than her demise in 2023.

She occurred to be seated subsequent to Jean-Louis Dumas, then inventive director of Hermes, on an Air France flight in 1981.

Carrying all her gadgets in a wicker basket, she complained to Dumas that the purses accessible on the time tended to be too small to suit all of her belongings.

The pair started sketching designs on the again of a sick bag, and by 1985, Hermes had produced a prototype and introduced it to Birkin, requesting her permission to call the brand new fashion in her honour.

It has since change into a standing image, worn by celebrities together with Kate Moss, Victoria Beckham, Khloe Kardashian and Jennifer Lopez.

Morgane Halimi, Sotheby’s international head of purses and style, stated: “The spectacular sale of the unique Hermes Birkin right this moment at Sotheby’s Paris marks an vital milestone within the historical past of style and the posh business extra broadly.

“It’s a startling demonstration of the facility of a legend and its capability to ignite the fervour and need of collectors in search of distinctive gadgets with distinctive provenance, to personal its origin.”

The earlier world report for a purse was the Hermes white Himalaya niloticus crocodile diamond retourne Kelly 28, which offered in 2021 for $513,040 (£380,000).

The most costly style merchandise ever offered was the pair of ruby pink slippers worn by Judy Garland within the movie The Wizard of Oz, which fetched $32.5m (£24m) in 2024.