A Hermès Birkin 30 once owned by Jane Birkin herself will go under the hammer at Bonhams in Paris later this month, carrying an estimate of €40,000 to €70,000. What sets the black Togo leather bag apart is the writing on its surface: Birkin took a white pen to the leather and left a personal message, in French, to a friend named Georgia, signing it off with her name and the word Athens.

The bag dates to 2009, and its story runs through a disrupted trip the following year. Birkin had travelled to Athens in April 2010 for the Francophone Film Festival, where she was promoting her album Jane Birkin au Palace. When the eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano grounded flights across Europe, she could not fly on to join her daughter Charlotte Gainsbourg in the United States. Instead she spent time with Georgia in Athens, and gave her the bag. Bonhams has not disclosed Georgia's surname or identified the consignor.

Writing on handbags with a white pen was a long-standing Birkin habit rather than a one-off gesture. She did the same to a bag belonging to Midori Senga, a friend in Tokyo, and even stepped on that one to soften the leather. Her Paris fashion chief at Bonhams, Hubert Felbacq, described her connection to the bag that bears her name as one of fashion's most lasting stories, crediting her with turning a practical carry-all into a symbol of relaxed Parisian style.

Interest in Birkin's personal belongings has surged since her original 1984 prototype sold for $10.1 million at Sotheby's in Paris in July 2025, a record for a handbag. A different Birkin of hers, a black Togo 35, made £119,000 at Bonhams in 2021, roughly five times its pre-sale estimate. The Paris sale will test whether the market still has that appetite, with bidding expected to run well past the €70,000 top estimate if the 2021 result is any guide.