It started out as a sketch. In 1984, Jane Birkin was sitting on an Air France flight next to Hermès president Jean-Louis Dumas with a too-small handbag, the entire contents of which spilled out during boarding. What if, the head of the leather goods manufacturer mused, his company made a bag big enough to fit all the stuff that someone like Birkin—actor-muse to Antonioni, chanteuse, mother of then two-year-old Lou Doillon—would have to carry around. They drew a design on an airplane sick bag, and voila, fashion history.
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Fast forward four decades, and that exact bag was set to be sold at Sotheby’s to enormous hype. The house revealed the consignment in October 2024 amid the general insanity of Art Basel Paris, and those who came by the auction house’s new HQ on Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré lined up for selfies with the bag. Most thought it could easily become the most expensive of its kind in the world, surpassing the $450,000 spent on a crocodile Birkin bag in 2022. Sotheby’s didn’t reveal an estimate, but if pressed, some thought it could sell for as much as $2 million.
What happened when it finally hit the block last week was astounding.
The action started at €1 million. Within a minute, bids from paddles raised in the room and collectors jousting via their reps raised the price to €2.4 million. Sotheby’s Europe chairman Mario Tavella was bidding with his landline crooked between his shoulder and ear, and his iPhone filming the proceedings for posterity. Then a collector came in at €3.5 million via Sotheby’s Japan president Maiko Ichikawa, only for fashion specialist Aurélie Vassy to beat that back by floating €3.8 million. Deputy director Eddie Hautchamp then had a bidder on the phone offering €4 million, before Ichikawa countered with €4.5 million. Hautchamp sabered in with €5.5 million, but Maiko clapped back by screaming “€6 million!” to whoops and cheers from the room.
But it wasn’t over. Hautchamp coaxed a €6.2 million bid from his client, only for Ichikawa to return service with a €6.5 million offer. With eternal patience, auctioneer Aurélie Vandevoorde watched as Hautchamp took an excruciating few minutes to come up with a €6.8 million volley, only for Ichikawa to return with a shocking figure: €7 million. Hautchamp couldn’t top that, and the gavel came down at €7 million, or €8.6 million with fees—a miraculous $10.1 million, the first item made by a fashion house to sell for eight figures.
The person on the other end of Ichikawa’s phone, the winner of the iconic treasure, immediately became the subject of a global guessing game. After initial reports said that a Japanese private collector bought the bag, many pointed to Yusaku Maezawa, the art collector who once splashed out $110 million on a giant Basquiat painting in 2017. He’s also a mid-century modern design freak, stuffing his homes with rare pieces by Jean Prouvé and Jean Royère.
But it wasn’t Maezawa. Instead, the buyer of the Birkin was Shinsuke Sakimoto, a former professional soccer striker for the high-level J1 league. After a few years playing fútbol professionally, Sakimoto retired early to start a company that became Valuence, a luxury resale venture that has an e-commerce site called Allu and a physical gallery space called Valon.
Crucially, Valuence stressed that—despite the nature of its business—the Birkin bag that made headlines around the world was not an investment play. Instead, once the work gets to Japan, it will be unveiled to the public at a press conference, and never put into the churn of Sakimoto’s resale empire.
“This acquisition was not intended for resale. Rather, it reflects our mission to preserve global cultural heritage and make it accessible to the public,” the company said in a statement. “We believe it is a socially impactful initiative, aligning with our values of sustainability and cultural stewardship. The item will be carefully preserved and displayed by the company to embody these commitments.”
Few details about Sakimoto exist online—the Birkin buyer is a bit of a mystery man. Diving into his Instagram presence, it’s clear he’s been a lover of art and design for years. He was throwing Thom Browne fits on the grid back in 2015. Hypebeast credentials confirmed: Days after buying the Birkin, Sakimoto was at Not a Hotel, a concept by the Bathing Ape impresario Nigo. He’s bought work by Miwa Komatsu and other Japanese artists, as well as a Damien Hirst print of his cherry blossom paintings. There’s little indication he was getting ready to drop over $10 million on a bag. He has fewer than 7,000 followers on Instagram.
In the short term, the biggest winner of the affair was the bag’s consignor, a French woman named Catherine Bernier. In 2000, the small Paris auction house Poulain le Fou slotted the bag in the deep-seeded 70th slot in a May 2000 auction of fashion items—Birkin herself had sold it for charity in 1994, and whoever bought it opted to flip it six years later.
Bernier bought it from Poulain le Fou for an undisclosed figure, though she later claimed it was, at the time, the most expensive bag in the world. Prices back then pale in comparison to what was to come. No Birkin would cross the $200,000 mark until an alligator example sold for $203,150 in 2011.
Bernier held the bag in her collection for 25 years, rarely loaning it out. In 2017, she sent it to New York for inclusion in Items: Is Fashion Modern? at MoMA, and later let it travel to London for a show at the V&A. Crowds came to see the prototype of a fashion item that became a household name, and yet Bernier was steadfast in her desire to keep the bag for herself.
“When I won the bidding, my first thought was, How am I going to pay for this? But I had sold some other pieces in order to buy it,” she told Christie’s in December 2018. “And no, I’m never selling!”
But she did end up selling, and at the other end of a shocking record-breaking sale, she doesn’t seem to regret anything.
“I am astonished at the result, but, as a passionate collector myself, I am first and foremost profoundly moved by the way other collectors have invested so much fervor in trying to acquire what they clearly desired beyond words,” she said after the sale. “I’m already very nostalgic at the thought of knowing the bag is no longer mine, but extremely happy it has found a new loving home. I wish the new owner as much happiness as I experienced with it.”
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