Birkin Ban

a smiling thin white french woman in chambray and jeans with little white sneakers sits gayly in a chair with her leg slung over the arm, and a black hermes birkin bag with medecins du monde stickers on it between her feet. she is in the corner of an expensively cluttered but not opulent home office, with jumbles of framed photos of presumably other famous people and family on the walls, the shades pulled down for the photo. jane birkin posing with her birkin bag in a photo sotheby's dgaf about captioning or providing any info about
Jane Birkin in an undated photo with one of her at least five Birkin bags, with a Médecins du Monde sticker on it, via Sotheby’s

I misremembered the connection, and thought that Jane Birkin had originally sold her original Hermès bag to benefit Médecins du Monde. But no.

I just looked it up, and Birkin put Médecins du Monde stickers on her Birkin to show her support. But she donated her original 1985 Birkin to an auction in 1994, “Les Encheres de l’Espoir,” to benefit Association Solidarité Sida, the leading French AIDS support charity. Whoever bought it sold it in 2000, and whoever bought it in 2000 sold it last year at Sotheby’s for EUR8.6 million, all proceeds to them.

It came up because Médecins du Monde is one of 37 international aid groups Israel has now banned from operating in Gaza.