“I remember it perfectly well! I’d been upgraded by Air France on a flight to London, and I found myself sitting next to a man [the visionary Jean-Louis Dumas of Hermès]. 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. [Dumas] thought I deserved more.
“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.’
“I said, ‘Why don’t you make a handbag that is bigger than the Kelly but smaller than Serge’s suitcase?’ And he said, ‘Well, what would it be like?’ And I think I drew it on the sick bag – or the not-be-sick bag. And he said, ‘I’ll make it for you’.”
Birkin then explained that when she “bowled along” some time later to Hermès to purchase the result of her in-flight special order, Dumas suggested instead that he give Birkin the bag in exchange for her lending her surname to christen the design.
She said: “I was very flattered! They’ve turned it into the success we know today.” She then added that Hermès paid her an annual royalty (£30,000 in 2011), which was then passed on to her nominated charities. That day Jane Birkin was wearing a black Birkin, clearly much used and loved (although she said not the original), whose straps were entwined with beaded bracelets, a miniature harmonica, and even an Hermès watch. About the watch, she said: “I don’t like to wear them, but sometimes you need the time.”
Disclaimer: This is part of a story published originally here.
“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.’
“I said, ‘Why don’t you make a handbag that is bigger than the Kelly but smaller than Serge’s suitcase?’ And he said, ‘Well, what would it be like?’ And I think I drew it on the sick bag – or the not-be-sick bag. And he said, ‘I’ll make it for you’.”
Birkin then explained that when she “bowled along” some time later to Hermès to purchase the result of her in-flight special order, Dumas suggested instead that he give Birkin the bag in exchange for her lending her surname to christen the design.
She said: “I was very flattered! They’ve turned it into the success we know today.” She then added that Hermès paid her an annual royalty (£30,000 in 2011), which was then passed on to her nominated charities. That day Jane Birkin was wearing a black Birkin, clearly much used and loved (although she said not the original), whose straps were entwined with beaded bracelets, a miniature harmonica, and even an Hermès watch. About the watch, she said: “I don’t like to wear them, but sometimes you need the time.”
Disclaimer: This is part of a story published originally here.