You'll Never Guess How a Humble Basket Inspired Hermès' Iconic Birkin Bag

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MK Quinlan is a writer, interior designer, and owner of MK Quinlan, a concept shop in Birmingham, Alabama’s historic Forest Park neighborhood that specializes in unique vintage and new clothing, jewelry, fine art, and textiles. Her work has been featured in WSJ Mag, Garden & Gun, & House Beautiful—among others—and her personal kitchen is featured in Abrams recently published book Uncommon Kitchens.

With the recent news of Jane Birkin’s death, and countless homages to her eponymous and highly collectible Hermès Birkin bag, I couldn’t help but think about how today’s Birkin bag culture has veered so far from Birkin’s effortless, bohemian style.

If you Google Jane Birkin, you’ll see that the bag she was photographed with the most throughout the ’60s and ’70s was a Portuguese fisherman’s basket. It’s truly just that: a basket she bought on vacation in Portugal, made for fishermen. She wore it to the grocery store, while traveling, and even with evening gowns.

It was her signature accessory and bigger than most women's handbags at the time. The girl had a lot of stuff she carried around, so only a chic basket would do. She never left home without it, regardless of whether it coordinated with her outfit, the season, or the occasion.

On a flight in 1981, Birkin dropped her bag and spilled the contents onto the floor of the plane (she didn’t realize she was sitting next to then-CEO of Hermès, Jean-Louis Dumas, and that this event would impact fashion forever).

She later told the Daily Telegraph, “I remember it well. I'd been upgraded by Air France on a flight to London, and was sitting next to a man. I'm not quite sure what type of bag I had with me—my husband, Jacques Doillon, had reversed his car over my basket, crushed it on purpose not two days before. Little did he know that on this airplane journey, when everything fell out of whatever bag I had, the man next to me said: 'You should have one with pockets'. I said: 'The day Hermès makes one with pockets I will have that', and he said: 'But I am Hermès and I will put pockets in for you'."

After that fateful flight, Dumas left with a new mission to design a bag that would keep women’s belongings safe and stylish. Keeping Jane Birkin (who was a young mother during that time) in mind, Dumas also made sure it had a dedicated space to carry her baby's bottles. And thus, the iconic Birkin bag was born.

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Birkin 30 Orange Crocodile Bag Palladium Hardware

Today the Hermès Birkin bag has a starting cost of $10,000, with special editions selling for over $500,000. Not to mention, there’s a six-year waiting list for a basic model—and the wait only gets longer from there. They are stored in glass cases in women’s closets, locked down to shelves at resale stores, and generally seen as the Rolls-Royce of handbags.

But Birkin’s approach to fashion wasn’t anywhere close to this precious. She was a wild one and a free spirit; she was famous for “dressing like a boy” and going nude under mesh mini dresses. I mean, she carried a $10 giant basket to black tie film premieres! She dared to be different, which is what cemented her as an icon in the style lexicon.

Jane’s own leather Birkin bag, worn after the fisherman’s basket was retired, wasn’t stored under lock and key or saved only for special occasions. It was stuffed with notebooks and makeup, and decorated with personal mementos and charms. She dared to make an iconic bag, the one named for her, different from the rest.

Rest in peace, Jane.

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