The mysterious world of buying a Birkin bag – and would you make the cut?

As anyone who has ever coveted one will attest, the biggest barrier to owning a designer handbag is its price. Some people save for years to be able to afford their chosen arm candy, be it a classic Chanel quilted, a Louis Vuitton pochette or a Gucci Jackie.

If the object of their desires is a Hermès Birkin, however, they may find themselves in for a shock. For even after saving assiduously in order to afford the £9,000 entry-level price tag, it may transpire that mere money alone is not enough to secure their prey. Instead, the path to ownership is more onerous and oblique – so oblique, in fact, that two Californian shoppers have launched a class action lawsuit accusing the storied French brand of refusing to sell them Birkins, despite “multiple attempts to purchase”.

The lawsuit claims that on each attempt to buy a Birkin, the shoppers were told that they “needed to purchase other items and accessories”, and that the handbags were only sold “to clients who have been consistent in supporting our business” – a practice known as “tying”, putting Hermès in violation of US antitrust laws. The lawyers are also seeking class action status for thousands of US shoppers who were pressured into buying other Hermès products as a means of eventually being able to purchase a bag.

In the pantheon of lawsuits, never has there been one more worthy of bringing out the tiny violins. Cost of living crisis or not, “I’m rich enough to buy a £9,000 Hermès bag but have been forced to buy a bunch of Hermès scarves and wallets instead” is not a lament likely to garner much sympathy. Yet it raises some important issues, shedding light onto the deliberately mysterious process that lies behind buying a Birkin. Can it really be a case of “if your face fits”?

With high-profile owners including Angelina Jolie, Julia Roberts, Princess Mary of Denmark, Kendall Jenner and Victoria Beckham (who is rumoured to own over 100), Hermès is unique among luxury brands in neither gifting its bags to celebrities nor paying ambassadors to endorse them. “We have celebrities who buy our bags, but we’ve never had a celebrity [ambassador], because everybody is seen as a client,” Axel Dumas, the company’s chief executive – and a sixth-generation member of the Hermès family – told me when I interviewed him in 2017. “Everybody’s welcome, no one is judged.” The Californian shoppers might beg to disagree.

Ironically, the Birkin’s exalted status hails from somewhat humble beginnings. In 1980, the model and actress Jane Birkin chanced to sit next to Jean-Louis Dumas, the then chief executive of Hermès, on an Air France flight from Paris to London. They started chatting, Birkin mentioning that she struggled to find a bag suitable for accommodating all the items she carried around as a young mother. Dumas grabbed one of the aeroplane’s sick bags, began sketching a simple rectangular tote with a flap, and a legend was born.

The first Birkin became available in 1984 and demand has outstripped supply ever since. Waiting lists are a constant, their exact length shrouded in secrecy. The convoluted buying process even provided a Sex and the City plot line, in an episode where Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall) tried to purchase one in Hermès’ New York store. “Five years for a bag?” she wailed, upon being told about the waiting list. “It’s not a bag – it’s a Birkin,” the sales assistant replied. 

On TikTok, tales abound of the lengthy and time-consuming process that hopefuls go through in their quest to bag a Birkin – a process referred to as “the game” that involves cultivating a strong relationship with an “SA” (sales assistant). In a post that has received 388k likes, the influencer Freya Killin detailed how she’d travelled from London to Paris for her 30th birthday in the hope of buying one. 

“My lovely SA offered me a leather appointment – which doesn’t mean you actually get a bag, but does mean you might get something,” she explains to her 140k followers. “It might not be everything you’re after – the hardware might be a different colour or the leather might not be what you wanted.” After a tense wait, the sales assistant returned with a black Togo leather Birkin 25 with gold hardware: price tag, £9,000. “I can’t believe she’s mine. I am officially a Birkin mum,” she smiles.

A cynic would point out that Hermès makes its bags deliberately scarce to fuel demand, but Hermès would argue that the truth is more pragmatic, and that a Birkin takes a long time to make. Fast fashion, this is not: 3,000 craftspeople work in 15 different ateliers throughout France, each highly trained in the unique specifics of Birkin manufacturing. According to Hermès, it takes seven years to master the art of making a crocodile Birkin, one of the most complex models.

It’s this craftsmanship for which the Birkin is so keenly prized. Most fashion connoisseurs regard Hermès as the holy grail of luxury, as much thanks to its history as the products themselves. Founded in Paris in 1837 by Thierry Hermès, it started out making harnesses for horses and has stayed true to its equestrian roots. In 1880, it opened its first store, and has been selling leather goods since 1922 and clothing since 1925. That it has protected its reputation so diligently is precisely why it is so in demand. It doesn’t do sales and is impervious to economic downturns, raising its prices exponentially because it can. After posting sales growth of 17.5 per cent in February, Hermès said it would increase prices by between 8 and 9 per cent in 2024.

While a new Birkin typically costs between £9,000 and £150,000, even those prices seem affordable when compared to those fetched at auction. Christie’s reports that in 2021, a rare matte white Himalaya crocodile Birkin with white gold and diamond hardware reached a record-breaking £405,000 at auction, while in 2021, Bonhams sold a black Togo Birkin owned by Jane Birkin for £119,000. “It was a privilege to source and sell such a coveted bag owned by the bag’s namesake,” says Meg Randell, Bonhams’ head of UK and European designer handbags. “It’s the enduring style, history, craftsmanship and heritage of Hermès bags that continue to capture people’s imaginations. They transcend trends.”

With new bags proving ever harder to buy, understandably, the resale market is booming. “UK auction houses first started offering specialised handbag sales around 12 years ago, although the subject has really taken off in the last eight years,” says Randell. “When I first started specialising in handbags and fashion 10 years ago, many people were surprised to hear that you could buy and sell at auction, whereas nowadays people are savvy to the fact that handbags such as Hermès are often highly collectible and now a key part of our luxury offering that can retain, or in some cases, increase in value. Most major auction houses now have a dedicated department, which demonstrates their allure and magic.”

While bags with famous owners or rare fabrications will always fetch eye-watering prices, even standard-issue Birkins are an investment worth making. Luxury resale site Vestiaire Collective cites the Birkin as one of its most in-demand bags, estimating that it retains around 130 per cent of its original value, a return that outstrips traditional investments such as property or gold. The online platform Baghunter estimates a rise in value of between eight and 10 times today’s market value over the next 50 years. According to Credit Suisse, the average price of Birkins rose by 38 per cent in 2021, while the UK stock market returned 8 per cent in the same year.

None of which is likely to mollify the two disgruntled Californian shoppers. While Hermès is yet to respond to the lawsuit, it will indubitably not affect demand. At a time when craftsmanship, heritage and the principles of slow fashion are coveted more than ever, for those lucky enough to be able to afford one, bringing home the Birkin will remain the ultimate prize.