Art Auction, Paris

Home
Art Auction
Christie’s Paris Celebrates Jane Birkin’s Iconic Hermès HAC – The Bag That Inspired a Legend

Christie’s Paris Celebrates Jane Birkin’s Iconic Hermès HAC – The Bag That Inspired a Legend October 14, 2025Art Auction, ParisOff

The Legend Returns: Jane Birkin’s Hermès Haut à Courroies – A Bag, A Life, A Love Story

L’iconique Hermès HAC de Jane Birkin et Serge Gainsbourg, inspirateur du Birkin.
Clou de la vente Handbags & Accessories chez Christie’s à Paris le 6 novembre, avec des présentations à Hong Kong, Bangkok et Paris pour célébrer le style inimitable de deux icônes.

There are objects that transcend fashion. They hold whispers, glances, untold stories – fragments of the lives they once accompanied. The Hermès Haut à Courroies (HAC) of Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg is one of those rare relics: an artifact not merely of luxury, but of legend.

This November, Christie’s Paris will present this extraordinary piece in its auction Avant-Garde(s) Including Thinking Italian – a sale that celebrates cultural icons and timeless artistry. Yet among all the works of design and desire, few possess the intimate gravity of this bag.

Because this isn’t just any Hermès.
It is Jane Birkin’s Hermès.

A Bag with a Soul

Before there was the Birkin bag as we know it – the fashion icon immortalized on the arms of the world’s elite – there was Jane’s HAC, the original inspiration. Created long before the smaller Birkin was born, the Haut à Courroies was a travel companion, a creative confidant, and a silent witness to the world’s most photographed romance.

Patinated by time and love, its weathered leather carries the marks of a life lived vividly. Scratches that recall train rides to Provence, faded corners that hint at cigarette smoke and song. It is an object shaped not only by artisans, but by the passage of memory itself.

Serge Gainsbourg once said, “The most beautiful love stories are those that end.”
Perhaps that is what makes this auction so magnetic: the bittersweet beauty of holding what remains.

The Poetry of Provenance

The bag was used by Jane Birkin throughout the 1970s and 1980s, at a time when her effortless style was quietly rewriting the codes of Parisian chic. It represents more than fashion – it embodies the birth of a cultural ideal: a fusion of British insouciance and French allure.

The Hermès HAC is not pristine, nor should it be. Its imperfections are its poetry – its creases, a diary of moments lived. In an age obsessed with perfection, its authenticity feels revolutionary.

Inside its grain and scuffs lies something greater than glamour: truth.

A Cultural Artifact

To own this piece is to possess a fragment of 20th-century mythology – a tangible link to the woman who inspired the world’s most famous bag and the man who set Paris on fire with words and melody. Together, Birkin and Gainsbourg defined an era of rebellion, tenderness, and artistic decadence.

Now, decades later, their story resurfaces not in a song or a film, but in a handbag – a vessel of love, a symbol of style, and a chapter of cultural history preserved in leather.

More Than an Auction

Christie’s, ever the curator of elegance and emotion, understands the power of such provenance. The sale doesn’t just invite collectors – it invites dreamers.

In an age where luxury often feels detached from meaning, this lot reminds us that true beauty lies in what has been lived.

In the quiet hum of the auction room this November, as the gavel falls and a new chapter begins, one thing is certain: the spirit of Jane Birkin – her grace, her wit, her unstudied rebellion – will linger on, wrapped in the scent of aged leather and chanson.

Because some objects don’t just belong to history –
they become it.

️ Auction Details
Avant-Garde(s) Including Thinking Italian
Christie’s Paris – November 6, 2025
www.christies.com/en/auction/avant-garde-s-including-thinking-italian-23807-par

Tags: 1970s Paris style, Birkin bag, Christie's Handbags & Accessories, Christie's Paris, fashion culture, fashion history, French elegance, French icons, Haut à Courroies bag, Hermès, Hermès auction, Hermès collectors, Hermès HAC, Hermès Haut à Courroies, iconic women, Jane Birkin, Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg, Jane Birkin bag auction, Jane Birkin Hermès, luxury handbags, luxury lifestyle magazine, Paris auctions 2025, Serge Gainsbourg, Shari Inessa, timeless style, vintage Hermès, What We Adore Magazine