Jane Birkin–The Brand Muse for ‘that bag’

NexT year

Hermes and Jane Birkin’s collaboration remains the most successful, enduring and strongest alliance in the fashion world. The bag that she designed now sells from $10,000 to $450,000, the latter representing the winning bid for a diamond Himalaya Birkin that was sold in a Sotheby’s auction in 2022. That is p25 million these days—a lot of dough for a fashion accessory—but that’s the mystique of the Birkin bag.

Despite its exorbitant retail and resale prices, the Birkin bag still, in the words of Anna Johnson in the book The Power of the Purse, “provokes demonic levels of desire.”

Blame Jean-Louis robert Frédéric Dumas, who served as chairman of the Hermes group from 1978 to 2006, for giving us a masterclass on choosing a brand muse with optimum results.

You’ve probably heard how Jane and the French billionaire met on an Air France flight from London to paris in 1981. In an interview with Christian Amanpour, Jane recalled: “I remember it perfectly well! 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]. 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.”

Dumas asked Birkin to draw her ideal handbag, which the former actualized a few months later through Hermes’ artisans. Dumas gave her the bag for free provided she would allow the company to call it a Birkin. Feeling flattered, she agreed and in 1984, Hermes launched what would become the world’s most famous purse.

So what did the Hermes chairman see in Jane Birkin in 1981 that made him name a bag after her? It’s because Birkin was an atypical star—she had the British cool and the French chic, and she was multi-talented too.

Jane was born in Marylebone, London but relocated to paris in 1969 after filming Slogan with Serge Gainsbourg, with whom she fell madly in love. The two collaborated on the duet “Je t’aime,” which became a massive hit with other songs and movies.

Jane epitomized glamor without the snobbishness and shone with bohemian chic and unique personal style that captivated women in France and the uK . It also helped that she was internationally famous as a singer, actress and model.

She did not milk her fame dry. She chose her projects meticulously, retired from acting in the early ’70s, and then made a comeback. There’s

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