The Birkin was sketched on an airplane sick bag
A ten-million-dollar bag, designed on a sick bag. In the early 1980s Jane Birkin's basket spilled open on a Paris to London flight. The man next to her happened to be Jean-Louis Dumas, the chairman of Hermès. She told him she couldn't find a leather bag she liked. He sketched one for her on an airplane sick bag. The Birkin launched in 1984. Her original sold at Sotheby's in 2025 for $10.1 million, the most expensive handbag ever auctioned.