Jane Birkin's everyday basket bag becomes $10.1 million luxury icon

A long time ago, a woman named Jane Birkin liked to carry a basket instead of a fancy handbag.

One day on an airplane, her basket tipped over and everything spilled onto the man sitting next to her.

That man was the head of a famous French company called Hermès that makes luxury bags.

Jane said she wished there was a bigger bag, so she drew her idea on a paper bag used for motion sickness.

The company made the bag for her, and she used it almost every day for years, adding stickers, beads and scratches.

That same bag, called the Birkin, later became one of the most famous handbags in the world.

When Jane wanted to help charity, she gave the original bag away to raise money.

In 2025, that original bag was sold at an auction in Paris for about $10.1 million, a new record for a handbag.

Birkins today can cost more than $200,000, but the bag was first made to be carried around, not locked away.

Jane Birkin died in 2023, but her simple idea became a famous piece of fashion history.