I am a digital fashion writer and I have therefore been trained in the art of making outsized declarations about innocuous items of clothing. And so, here is another one: the Birkin bag is back! That is perhaps the ultimate non-statement, because these exorbitant purchases – and all the status that collects around them – have never lost their allure. But the Birkin does seem to be experiencing a resurgence in the celebscape, which means it’s no longer the sole reserve of ascendant influencers.
And here is the difference between those two things: on Instagram, the Birkin is displayed in aspirational carousels, box-fresh and photographed alongside pristine coffee table tomes. In paparazzi shots, meanwhile, the Birkin seems to be worn as a badge of authentic living: personalized with trinkets and charms – à la Dua Lipa and Anne Hathaway – and sometimes pet dogs – à la Irina Shayk – or overstuffed and spilling with (legal?) papers – à la Kim Kardashian’s gargantuan iteration.
Like Jane Birkin’s life-long schlepper and Mary-Kate Olsen’s red wine-stained Birkin, it’s about the uber-wealthy flexing their riches in the most casual of ways. Kim’s enormous bag – which could fit an entire litter of pocket-sized purebreds inside – reminds me of an era when Pharrell Williams would stroll around with his own colossal Haut à Courroies holdall. If famous people can’t maintain distance from all those people that store their handbags in hermetically sealed vaults, then they will do so with the most niche and obscene – and therefore hard-to-come-by – Birkin known to man.
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