How do you imagine the most expensive handbag in the world might look? Jewel-encrusted, gold-plated, monogrammed, hand-sewn by Tibetan monks under the light of a new moon? (All of which, incidentally, have been used by luxury brands to drive up the price of a bag.)
On Monday, we got a few real clues, when a 2014 Hermès Birkin bag - Barbie-pink crocodile skin, with diamond-encrusted hardware - became the most expensive ever sold at auction, fetching £146,000 from an anonymous phone bidder at Christie's in Hong Kong.
Incredibly, however, this may still not make it the world's most expensive handbag. That accolade could soon be swiped by a Himalayan Nilo crocodile Birkin, made bespoke by Hermès for an elite private customer for $300,000 (£197,000) - and now listed for sale on 1stdibs.com, an online market place for rare and desirable objects, for $450,000 (£295,000). Boasting 200 diamonds with a total of 8.2 carats, crocodile skin rendered creamy white by an intricate hand-dyeing process meant to evoke the Himalayan mountains and now an increase in value of £98,000, the concept of "getting your money's worth" on an investment has never rung so true.
How Jane Birkin's bag idea took off
Miranda Kerr and Irina Shayk tote their Birkin bags. Photo: REX
In pictures: Celebrities who love the Birkin bag
A history of defacing Hermès bags
Miranda Kerr and Irina Shayk tote their Birkin bags. Photo: REX
In pictures: Celebrities who love the Birkin bag
A history of defacing Hermès bags
The bag's current owner might be tickled (or horrified) to hear that the origins of the Birkin are somewhat less glossy. Named, of course, after the British actress and singer Jane, the design was conceived in 1981 by Hermès's then-chief executive Jean-Louis Dumas, and first sketched out on an Air France sick bag during a flight to London. Birkin had complained to her neighbouring passenger that she needed a bag with pockets. He turned her frustration into a symbol for luxury now recognised the world over.
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Birkin still receives around £30,000 a year in royalties from Hermès for the use of her name (which she donates to charity), but she's not the only one making money from calfskin receptacles. Over the past decade, the value of the most sought-after handbags has risen by an average of 8 per cent a year - matching the annualised returns of the FTSE All-Share Index. Which means the handbag resale market is going great guns, with designer resale sites such as Covetique and Vestiaire Collective capitalising on the appetite for luxury bags.
Hermès is king, according to Fanny Moizant, co-founder of Vestiaire Collective, thanks to its limited production runs, several year-long waiting lists and superior quality, but other luxury brands such as Céline, Chanel and Louis Vuitton sell well, too; the fastest-selling item on the Vestiaire site was a Chanel handbag, which sold in 17 seconds.
"You pay 2.8 times today what you would have paid for a Birkin seven years ago - and that's just the retail price," says Moizant. "There's a huge market for rare bags, and as soon as brands manage the distribution and restrict production, people will pay more. They want rarity, timeless shapes and heritage brands. I think they also like the emotional element of bags named after icons such as Grace Kelly - the bags become brands in themselves." The most expensive handbag Vestiaire Collective has sold online was a ruby-encrusted crocodile Birkin bag that went for £150,000.
Now, auction houses are seeking to capitalise on a growing market for secondhand designer goods - specifically couture, handbags, and jewellery. Sotheby's closed its fashion department in 2004 - but with recent sales of clothes owned by Elizabeth Taylor , Princess Diana and Marilyn Monroe pulling in millions (the sale of Taylor's art collection in 2011 brought in over £14 million alone; her jewellery, a staggering £74million), it has begun to revisit fashion and jewellery auctions to rival Christie's, the house responsible for the record-breaking Taylor sale and the recent Birkin bonanza.
On July 8, Sotheby's will hold its first auction of couture in Paris, featuring some 150 pieces from the private collection of Didier Ludot, a fashion collector who amassed items created between 1924 and the early 2000s over a 40-year period. "Every Dress Tells a Story: Couture from the Didier Ludot Collection" will offer items by couture houses including Christian Dior, Cristóbal Balenciaga, Paul Poiret and Madame Grès.
Kerry Taylor, a former Sotheby's stalwart (she worked there for 24 years) who now has her own eponymous couture auction room, has been consulting on the Ludot collection. She is keen to insist on the difference between luxury handbags and couture: "Luxury handbags appeal to newly emerging markets, and the big buyers from China and Russia don't mind a secondhand handbag, but they do mind a secondhand dress."... .See more
By Ellie Pithers, fashion.telegraph.co.uk
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