Kim Kardashian is known for her extravagant taste — but even her close friends are wondering if she just dropped some serious cash on an iconic bag.
On Saturday, July 11, Kardashian shared a video that featured a model breaking a glass case containing the original Birkin bag inspired by the late actress Jane Birkin, who died in July 2023. Kardashian followed up the post with a series of texts from various people, all wondering if she had purchased the bag, which sold for €8.6 million ($10.1 million) at auction on Friday, July 10.
“Are u the winner of the first Birkin bag?” one text read.
“Please tell me you bought that Birkin,” another friend texted. “Would be BAD ASS.”
“Kim for real did you buy the original Birkin??? Or should I stop blaming you every time I lose an auction?” another text read.
Turns out, and despite Kardashian’s hints and her friends’ speculation, the bag ultimately went to Valuence Japan, Inc., in Minato-ku, Tokyo, who placed their bid through Maiko Ichikawa, Country Head of Sotheby’s Japan.
The Associated Press reported that the auction began at $1 million and the bag had bids placed in person and via phone. The final four bids were for €6.2 million, $6.5 million and $6.8 million.
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Back in 2012 Birkin — who famously often carried wicker baskets in lieu of a handbag — told Vogue how the iconic bag came into fruition. She was seated next to Jean-Louis Dumas, chairman of the Hermès group from 1978 to 2006, on a flight when the pair began to discuss the bag she had brought on the flight.
“I’d been upgraded by Air France on a flight to London, and I found myself sitting next to a man [the visionary Jean-Louis Dumas of Hermès],” she told writer Luke Leitch. “I’m not quite sure what type of bag I had with me — my husband Jacques Doillon had reversed his car over my basket, crushed it on purpose not too days before. [Dumas] thought I deserved more.”
She continued, “Little did he know that on this airplane journey, when everything fell out of whatever bag I had, the man next to me said, ‘you should have one with pockets.’ I said, ‘the day Hermès makes one with pockets I will have that.’”
Birkin went on to add that the designer told her that because “I am Hermès, and I will put pockets in for you.” ’
“I said ‘why don’t you make a handbag that is bigger than the Kelly but smaller than [former longtime partner] Serge’s [Gainsbourg] suitcase?’ And he said ‘well, what would it be like?’ And I think I drew it on the sick bag—or the not-be-sick bag. And he said ‘I’ll make it for you,’” she added.
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Birkin popped into Hermès to buy the bag that had been designed, but instead Dumas offered to give it to her if she allowed him to name it for her. “I was very flattered! They’ve turned it into the success we know today,” she said.
