✨ST 0192: BIG BAG$

Yeah, we took a week off from the newsletter (the first time in 191 issues)...

Listen… it was a holiday weekend, the sun was out, whatever... 

BUT, back to the program this weekend because there’s something big to talk about…

So you all saw what happened this week, right?

Well, in case you didn’t, on Thursday 7/10 at 10am EST, Sotheby’s sold an Hermès Birkin Bag in the July “Fashion Icons” auction for 10 MILLION DOLLARS.

We were a part of the process. We were NOT the winning bidder. More on that sometime in the future…

But enough about us - the 1984-created prototype Birkin Bag crafted specifically for Jane Birkin herself went absolutely NUTS during the auction. It’s the basis for the most important handbag ever created, and the keystone of a nearly $300B empire (learn more about it’s importance here on Rally’s 90 second IG breakdown), so it kinda makes sense when you think about it in terms of historical and cultural value.

As for the auction itself, when the 9-bidder war on the phones in the Paris auction room concluded, the bag absolutely destroyed every record. 

$97,000 per square inch. $2.1M per letter in the word “Birkin.” $10,100,000 in total for the final hammer + buyers premium.

A new record for any handbag, ever.

So how’d we get here?

The bag was a unicorn: handmade after Hermès’ legendary former chairman Jean-Louis Dumas had a chance encounter with Jane Birkin herself on a flight, where they literally sketched the concept for the “Birkin Bag” on the back of an air sickness pouch. 

It had only been seen sparingly in public before the auction rollout. It wasn’t even technically a “bag” in the traditional retail sense - it was the bag that made the bag. The Birkin before the Birkin. A Frankenstein’d sample combining early pieces of multiple versions of the Birkin we all know in present day.

Either way, buzz around this prototype was electric. Fashion insiders, collectors, and even a few billionaires were circling. 

And then came the live auction…

What followed was one of the most intense bidding wars Sotheby’s has seen this year, ending with one mystery bidder landing the bag for 20x the record for a Birkin auction sale.

The identity of the buyer hasn’t been confirmed, but rumors are swirling. The internet is pointing fingers, but the consensus is that a very private Japanese billionaire took it down (referred to as “the Japanese bidder” during live bidding).

And word on the Rue Saint-Honoré is that Lauren Sánchez (Jeff Bezos' wife) was the underbidder who missed out by $250K. Which would check out. You don’t get that kind of billionaire energy in a bidding war without a little billionaire drama behind the scenes.

Whether or not the bag pops up in public or the bidder comes forward to identify himself/herself is yet to be seen, but the conclusion of the most insane auction of the year so far is worth a look… 

It’s got all the ooo’s and ahhh’s you would expect in a room full of money

Watch the drama unfold, direct from Paris straight to your phone, right here:

Until next week…