ARTBURO: First person to customizing the Hermès Birkin bag: Jane Birkin!

Jane Birkin 
It’s somewhat ironic that the first person to deface the Hermès Birkin bag was the very woman that it was created in honour of. Birkin has carried the bag since its creation, but has almost always ‘customised’ it with protest stickers, beads and other trinkets so that it “doesn’t look like a bloody Birkin bag!”, sheepish about the fact that she has a “snobbish bag” named after her.

She’s currently on her fifth; the first four were auctioned off for charity. On a Japanese TV programme in 2008, Birkin stamped repeatedly on a tan-coloured Birkin, saying it made it look ‘unique’ instead of boring and clean.