Jane Birkin ditches Hermes bag for sporran

Published on Sunday 19 March 2006 00:24

LEGENDARY actor and singer Jane Birkin has ditched the Hermes Birkin bag, which she inspired, in favour of the Scots sporran after the world-famous accessory gave her tendonitis.

Launched over 20 years ago, the Birkin bag has become a cultural symbol of elitism, privilege and celebrity. But after complaining of pains in her arms, the singer and actress has replaced her four-figure namesake with a 10 kilt accessory.

Birkin said: "I bought this second-hand [sporran purse] in Edinburgh three years ago, and a more useful little thing one couldn't own. It's the envy of Paris. I gave up on the [Birkin] bag right away. That bloody thing. I told Hermes they were mad to make it. My one was always full and it ended up giving me tendonitis.

"This sporran cost me 10 from a shop near Edinburgh Castle. It's all I need for my mobile phone, some junky make-up and useful pieces of driftwood from South America that give you good luck."

The Hermes Birkin bag was inspired in the mid-1980s after the singer spilled the contents of her too-small bag onto the Hermes designer on a plane in 1981. First made in Paris in 1984 and later launched in America, the Birkin bag's unique design, complete with lock, key and rectangular shape, is a trademark Hermes piece, inspiring legions of copycats and two-and-a-half-year waiting lists.

It became so well known in the late 1990s that it featured in hit sitcoms such as Sex and the City and Will & Grace.

The opening price for a Birkin is $6,000 (3,417). To celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2004, Hermes designed a new smaller Birkin in crocodile hide, available in four colours, with fittings of white or yellow gold, embellished with diamonds. The bag was put on sale for $75,300 (42,884).

Birkin arrived in France in the late '60s and quickly became the most popular English artist on the French music scene. Her career highlight remains the explicit chart-topping 1968 classic 'Je t'aime moi non plus'. Radio stations banned it from their play-lists and the Vatican condemned the 'immoral' nature of the song.

A spokesperson for Hermes was unavailable for comment.