How you can buy Jane Birkin’s most personal Hermès bag in Abu Dhabi

Abu Dhabi is about to host one of the most emotionally charged fashion auctions of the decade. A rare black Hermès Birkin, once owned, carried, and personally inscribed by the late Jane Birkin herself, will be offered to collectors during the inaugural Abu Dhabi Collectors’ Week from December 2 to 5, with a live auction on the final evening.

This is not just another Birkin. This is Le Birkin Voyageur—one of only four bags Hermès ever gifted to Jane Birkin after she auctioned off her original prototype in the 1990s.

Expected to fetch between $240,000 and $440,000, the bag arrives on the heels of July’s $10 million sale of her original Birkin in Paris, which shattered global auction records and reignited an international obsession with the bag that started it all.

Unlike pristine collector pieces, Le Birkin Voyageur tells the story of a life lived boldly. Crafted in black Box leather and worn through years of daily use, the bag is marked with Jane Birkin’s poetic notes in silver ink, including the line:

“Mon Birkin bag qui m’a accompagné dans le monde entier”
(“My Birkin bag, my globetrotting companion”)

Inside, she doodled figures, signed “Jane B,” and scribbled reflections—turning the handbag into a living diary. It is the only Birkin in existence that carries Birkin’s own handwritten musings, making it not just a luxury object, but a piece of her soul.

The auction takes place during Abu Dhabi Collectors’ Week, an ultra-luxury showcase presented by Sotheby’s in partnership with the Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO), hosted at the St. Regis Saadiyat Island Resort—a fitting setting where art, fashion, and wealth converge against a backdrop of sea and sand.

It marks a pivotal moment: the Middle East is no longer merely a consumer of global luxury, but a stage where fashion history is being written and sold.

Jane Birkin wasn’t just a muse—she was a movement. She auctioned her Birkin bags to raise funds for causes she believed in. In return, Hermès quietly replaced them, creating a lineage of four personal Birkins. Le Birkin Voyageur was her everyday companion between 2003 and 2007—spotted on her shoulder at airports, charity events, and onstage appearances.

As Morgane Halimi, Sotheby’s Global Head of Handbags & Fashion, puts it:

“This is not just fashion history. This is personal history. It is the closest a collector can come to walking in Jane Birkin’s shoes.”

Where: St. Regis Saadiyat Island Resort, Abu Dhabi
When: Exhibition: 2–5 December | Live Auction: 5 December