Clients’ enthusiasm surrounding the sale of Jane Birkin’s original prototype pushed Sotheby’s to upgrade the planned online-only sale into a live auction in its Paris galleries.

A regular Hermès Birkin bag is worth thousands of dollars. But the one that started it all, Jane Birkin’s original prototype, sold for 8.6 million euros at Sotheby’s Paris, or $10.1 million, setting a new record for a handbag sold at auction.

As the story goes, the actress and singer Jane Birkin sat next to Hermès executive Jean-Louis Dumas on a fateful flight from Paris to London in the early 1980s. She needed a bag with more space than her usual wicker baskets, and together they came up with a structured tote with two handles. Sotheby’s lists the bag for sale as a 1985 prototype.

Since then, the Birkin bag has become a pop-culture phenomenon. It is name-checked in rap lyrics and on “Sex and the City,” photographed on celebrities and regularly fetches six-figures on the auction block. Birkins can be difficult to procure from Hermès and some styles have lengthy waiting lists. Morgane Halimi, Sotheby’s global head of handbags and fashion, describes Birkins as “the most in-demand bag in the world.”

Birkin, widely regarded as a style icon, often adorned her bag with stickers, charms and beads.

The clients’ enthusiasm surrounding this auction pushed Sotheby’s to upgrade the planned online-only sale into a live auction in its Paris galleries. According to Sotheby’s, nine people competed in a 10-minute bidding war, which started at 1 million euro. Onlookers applauded and gasped as the bids passed 4 million euro. It was sold to Valuence Japan, a luxury resale company, at a hammer price of 7 million euro. In a press release, the company said it plans to preserve and display the bag.

It immediately set a new record for a handbag sold at auction, a title previously held by a Hermès Kelly made with white crocodile leather and diamonds, which sold for $513,040 in 2021.

The prototype has several differences from modern Birkins. Today, they come in standard sizes, such as the Birkin 35 or the Birkin 40, colorful leathers and even with diamond-encrusted hardware. The original Birkin has the width and height of a Birkin 35 and the depth of a Birkin 40. The hardware is made of gilded brass, which was later replaced by gold-plated hardware in the first series release in 1986. Metal rings, placed near the clasp, are fully closed on the prototype rather than open at one end. An interior zipper was manufactured with one of the vendors Hermès no longer uses. The studs on the bottom of the bag are smaller than those on subsequent models. It is also the only bag to have a shoulder strap that is not removable. The most personal details, however, are the actress’s nail clippers hanging on the shoulder strap, and the J.B. initials on the front flap of the bag.

The original Birkin features J.B. initials on the front flap of the bag.

On a few occasions, Birkin sold her namesake bags to raise money for charity. The prototype was sold in early October 1994 in support of Association Solidarité Sida, an AIDS charity organization in France. Most recently the bag was owned by collector Catherine Benier, who bought it at an auction in 2000.

Birkin, widely regarded as a style icon, often adorned her bag with stickers (the residue can be seen on the prototype), charms and beads. It matched her laid-back sense of style, which often included jeans and white tees. The way she styled her bag inspired a “Jane Birkin-ify” trend on social media, where people added ribbons and Labubus to their bags.

“It was an everyday bag for her. Jane Birkin had a fairly charmed life in a lot of ways, and one of them was to get to casually own the most famous bag in the world that was named after her,” Marisa Meltzer, author of the forthcoming book “It Girl: The Life and Legacy of Jane Birkin,“ said in an email. (Meltzer has also contributed to The Wall Street Journal.)

Meltzer said that Birkin had a good sense of humor about the bag’s popularity. “She’d joke that people would say, “Birkin like the bag?” She’d say, “Yes, and the bag is going to sing now.”