PARIS — “Salvator Mundi” may have been the biggest headline of the year for Christie’s auction house, but it was not its only record breaker. On Tuesday the auction house’s final handbag and accessories sale was another game changer.
With sales totaling 2.37 million euros (about $2.7 million), the Paris auction exceeded expectations and topped last week’s event in New York ($1.58 million). Though it trailed November’s $5.24 million take in Hong Kong (40.909 million HK dollars), it set a precedent of its own.
As Matthew Rubinger, Christie's senior director, luxury handbags and accessories, observed pre-auction, in each sale there are pieces that are “theoretically the most valuable or theoretically the most popular. And then there’s what happens in real time.”
What happened was this: Amid a cluster of mainly Hermès bags, along with a sprinkling of lots from Chanel, Louis Vuitton and a private collection of 40 crystal-studded evening bags, the highest-selling item wasn’t one of the usual suspects.
It wasn’t, for example, the Himalaya Kelly in new condition. It wasn’t the pristine black crocodile Birkin with diamond-encrusted hardware — despite the fact an Hermès Birkin Himalaya with diamond pavé hardware recently went for $383,522 at Christie’s in Hong Kong, setting the world record as the most expensive handbag ever sold at auction.
And it wasn’t the Courchevel yellow mini Kelly originally owned by Elizabeth Taylor — though that one sold for $47,196, more than double the price it fetched when Christie’s auctioned the actress’s estate in 2011.
Continue reading the main storyRather, just as the sale appeared to have crested, sparring broke out between two remote bidders, one online and one on What’s App, over Lot 172: a metallic bronze chèvre leather Birkin with gold hardware. Inspired by Hermès’s celebrated window displays by Leïla Menchari, that Birkin cost less than 10,000 euros in 2005, the only year it was produced.
It sold for 100,000 euros ($117,394) to a bidder in Hong Kong, setting a world record for a leather Birkin sold at auction.
“I think this lot is a really good example of where the market is today,” Mr. Rubinger said after the event. “It proves that the market is driven by collectors who come for something unique and different.”
Indeed, Tuesday’s sale also saw a spike in popularity for lesser-known styles. Several Hermès Constance bags surged past high estimates. One, a custom piece in etain Epsom leather, sold for $20,648. In the end, the Himalaya Kelly sold for $110,615. The crocodile and diamond Birkin went for $103,241.
Still, a client searching for relative bargains could find plenty: Early in the auction, an azalea pink Birkin produced this year sold for $11,799, while bids for several Birkins and Kellys in neutral colors like tosca, ebony or a caramel gold went for $7,300 to $10,500, a range comparable to current retail prices (but without the waiting list). A Matryoshka evening bag from the 2012 Chanel Métiers d’Art Paris-Bombay collection, a style produced in such small quantities that it has become a collector’s favorite, fetched $22,123, over triple the original price.
In another first, Mr. Rubinger and his team took a risk on a collection of 40 crystal handbags consigned by a single European client, who preferred to remain anonymous. Most pieces were pre-1999 figurative styles by Judith Lieber, along with a few by Kathrine Baumann, a designer with no significant track record at auction.
A Baumann Coke bottle and Diet Coke can were the top sellers at $4,130 each. Bids for Lieber models, such as a koi fish, a sleeping cat or a violin, all topped $3,000; other models, like the silver and black swan style Mr. Big offered Carrie in “Sex and the City,” sold for an average of about $1,200.
Handbags have fast become a core category for Christie’s, Mr. Rubinger said, attracting approximately 30 percent new buyers, including more women and young bidders than those drawn by other categories (jewelry included). European buyers accounted for 53 percent of the Paris sale, according to Christie’s, while 25 percent of purchases came from Asia and 20 percent from the United States, a substantial increase from last year.
“With the paintings, it’s such a major financial decision that no one is having fun with it,” Mr. Rubinger said. “It’s all so serious. But for bags, we want sellers to be excited that their stuff is in the sale, and for buyers to be excited to own something. If there’s not that emotion, then it just doesn’t work.”
For future sales, the handbag department will be focusing even more on top collector pieces, Mr. Rubinger said. “We’ve been shifting toward highly special, important pieces for a year and a half, and it’s working well,” he said. “Every season we’re breaking new ground.”
As for the record-setting Birkin, Mr. Rubinger said by Wednesday morning he had already fielded several queries from clients who own similar bags.
“The market has already shifted,” he said. “Now, people are asking for much higher numbers.”
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