The OG Birkin Bag Goes for $10M

A picture of Birkin and the original bag in HK

It turns out the OG Birkin bag, the first one co-designed by actress and singer Jane Birkin and Hermes CEO Jean-Louis Dumas in 1984 is worth US$10.1 million and was sold to a lucky collector in Japan at a Sotheby's auction the other day.

The price crushed the most paid for an Hermes bag, a Kelly bag made of white Himalaya Niloticus crocodile skin that was sold at auction in 2021 for $513,040.

Unlike most auctioned Hermes bags that are practically in pristine condition, this original Birkin bag is scuffed up, still has the outlines from political stickers that were placed on the bag for its owner, Birkin, to display her stances on issues, and has the initials J.B. stamped on the bag.

Dumas helped design the Birkin bag in the 1980s

The story of how the bag was created is practically legend, but true: In the 1980s she was on a Paris to London flight when Birkin, who was carrying a tattered woven wicker basket as her handbag, tried to stow it away, when items fell out and onto the floor.

She fortuitously sat next to Dumas, and Birkin asked him why Hermes didn't make bigger handbags. He proceeded to take an air sickness bag and sketch out a bag design for her. 

Their discussion of the bag continued well after the flight until he finally presented Birkin with the bag with the now signature clasps and handle and Dumas asked if the bag could be named after her.

Women today don't use their Birkin bag like she did -- to preserve its value and condition, most people only bring it out for show; after all they had to wait years to be able to purchase it!

Back in the 1990s I was fortunate enough to meet Dumas. He came to Hong Kong several times not only to visit the Hermes shops, but also meet up with his son, Pierre-Alexis Dumas, who was based in the city.

The original Birkin sold for over US$10 million

The elder Dumas was very charismatic, suave and had lots of stories to tell. He was the one who started the idea of setting a theme for every year and artisans at Hermes would create products and designs related to those themes. Basically a clever way to keep customers coming back to their boutiques.

When Dumas took over Hermes in 1978, the company's revenues were $50 million. By 1990 it was $460 million. The year before Dumas died in 2009 it was $2.5 billion.

Birkin kept the bag until 1994 when she donated it for an auction to raise money for an AIDS charity. It was auctioned again in 2000 until now, where it was estimated to be worth around $1 million.

The estimates were wrong by ten-fold.

The Mystery of the Missing Karsh Portrait Solved

The Roaring Lion has been found... in Italy

My father is a photo enthusiast and loves taking pictures. When I was young he told me about the famous Armenian-Canadian portrait photographer and showed me his famous pictures in two books he had.

There was then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, actress Sophia Loren, scientist Albert Einstein, and actress Audrey Hepburn. They are striking photographs because they are usually minimalist backgrounds and focus on the subject's face and their expressions. It was an honour to "be Karshed".

Karsh is best known for the Churchill portrait

But perhaps the most famous portrait is that of then British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill, which was taken after he addressed the Canadian Parliament during World War II on December 30, 1941. 

Right after his speech, Karsh took the portrait of Churchill in the Speaker's Chamber during a very quick photo session.

As the story goes, Karsh asked Churchill to take the cigar out of his mouth, but he refused. So just before Karsh took the picture, he plucked the cigar out of the prime minister's mouth and got that grumpy, stern expression.

After the photo shoot, Churchill said: "You can even make a roaring lion stand still to be photographed," which led to the name of this portrait.

Karsh and his wife lived in the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa for many years where he also had a studio, and when they moved out, they gifted a signed copy of the Roaring Lion to the hotel along with other portraits that were hung in public areas for visitors to admire.

Estrellita Karsh in front of the portrait

But sometime between December 25, 2021 to January 6, 2022 the Roaring Lion was brazenly stolen from the hotel and replaced with a slightly smaller replica.

In May 2022, Italian lawyer Nicolas Cassinelli unknowingly bought the portrait from a Sotheby's online auction for around 5,000 euros, or over C$9,000.

The portrait hung it in his house in Genoa, Italy, and Cassinelli today told the media it was like having the Mona Lisa in his living room.

It wasn't until August 2022 when a hotel maintenance worker who worked there for decades, noticed there was something different about the portrait and reported it stolen. Ironically the police told him he was considered a suspect, as the authorities thought it was an inside job.

Last October Cassinelli was contacted by Sotheby's warning the Canadian police were investigating the theft and would need to look at the photograph, as it may have been stolen.

The apartment in the hotel the Karshes lived in

However it wasn't until February 2024 that police verified he had the stolen picture.

Yesterday it was announced Jeffrey Iain James Wood, a 43 year-old from Powassan, Ontario, was arrested in April on multiple charges, including theft, forgery and trafficking stolen property.

In the meantime Cassinelli will travel from Genoa, Italy to Rome to formally return the portrait to the Canadian consulate this weekend and then it will be brought back to the Chateau Laurier where it will be rehung.

Cassinelli was only reimbursed about half of what he paid for the photograph, but he is taking it in stride and says he has an interesting story to tell about his brief time with Karsh's portrait.

Grazie mille Cassinelli and we are looking forward to Churchill coming back to Ottawa! 

Fact of the Day: US$108M for Klimt Painting

Gustav Klimt's last completed painting before he died in 1918

Some Hongkongers still have deep, deep pockets to splurge in the hundreds of millions at an art auction.

One of the last paintings by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt was sold to a Hong Kong collector for £85.3 million (US$108.4 million), making it the most expensive artwork ever sold in Europe.

Entitled Dame mit Facher (Lady with a Fan) sold to a Hong Kong client after a 10-minute bidding war between four people at Sotheby's in London.

The sale price far exceeded the presale estimate of £65 million (US$80 million).

The painting was the last portrait Klimt completed before he died in 1918. It shows an unidentified woman against a resplendent China-influenced backdrop of a phoenix, peacock and lotus blossoms.

It was last sold in 1994 for US$11.6 million at auction in New York.

Talk about a beautiful investment after 29 years...

For the rest of us plebeians how long before we get to see this painting again?

Review: Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong

This book is part history, part memoir

There are several books about the 2019 protests and Louisa Lim's Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong combines numerous threads that are subtly woven through the chapters and then magically come together into a striking record. 

One thread is Lim's family history and childhood in Hong Kong, another is her interest in a crazy artist nicknamed the King of Kowloon who painted childlike graffiti all over the city, and the last thread about Hong Kong's history and how the once barren rock transformed into an international metropolis thanks to British policies and the sheer hard labour of the Chinese, mostly refugees.

Throughout its entire history, Hong Kong's people were never given a say of their fate. In the negotiations leading up to the signing of the 1984 Joint Declaration by British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, there was another group tangentially involved -- the Unofficials.

Author and journalist Louisa Lim

They were a small group of local elites who tried to advise the British to not trust the Chinese, but they were completely sidestepped and felt betrayed. 

The proof is in a series of confidential interviews these Unofficials gave to Hong Kong political scientist Steve Tsang in the 1980s and 1990s with the promise they would be kept secret until 30 years later, which is now.

Lim read every single page and distills how the Unofficials felt at the time, betrayed by the British despite their loyalty, and trying to keep a brave face in front of the public as all their negotiations were to be top secret -- not even their wives or friends were to know what was discussed.

And it is interesting to note how these Unofficials' fears of what would happen to Hong Kong have come true, how the vagueness of the Basic Law would lead to Beijing interpreting it, and not give Hongkongers the rights they were promised, which have led us to where we are today.

Another fascinating read is when she recalls the time she was a reporter at TVB during the 1997 handover. The TV station had planned programming to the minute for up until the handover ceremonies were held, but then were completely lost the following days afterwards as to what they should focus on, much like the city trying to feel its way with the Basic Law as its new constitution.

She also interviews the last governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, now decades later on looking back on what happened to the city. His response was far from the polished politician he usually is.

Tsang with his numerous graffiti writings

The book then moves fast forward to 2014 and the Umbrella Movement, how it was such an extraordinary protest at the time for the city, but also marked the beginning of the authorities using lawfare -- weaponising the law against defendants like Benny Tai Yiu-ting and Joshua Wong Chi-fung.

Lim notes how the movement, which paralysed the city for 79 days, ended so abruptly that protesters found it difficult to process and figure out what to do next.

That came five years later in the 2019 extradition protests that exploded into months of protests on the streets. Lim shuttled back and forth between Melbourne and Hong Kong to cover the protests periodically. Not only was she trying to cover them as a journalist, Lim was trying to process it all as a Hongkonger -- what was happening to her city?

It's something many of us were grappling with as we watched the street battles, the violent clashes, the blank-faced government officials and the determined protesters day after day. 

Meanwhile Lim also weaves into the book her obsession with Tsang Tsou-choi, a poorly-educated man who believed Kowloon belonged to his ancestors and thus him, and began protesting by painting crude Chinese calligraphy on government property. In a way it was also his way of marking his territory.

She recalls how he was written off as a madman and then suddenly became a superstar, his work even exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2003 and auctioned off by Sotheby's the following year. 

The early extradition protests in June 2019

To Lim in a quirky way he represented Hongkongers fighting for their rights, and how he is an important part of the city's art development and culture.

Sadly she notes how Beijing has a strong hand over Hong Kong in the last few years, observing how the government labelled the protesters as "rioters", thus changing the narrative, and brutal police tactics seemed to have repeated how protests in Chengdu were shut down in 1989.

And she mourns how press freedom ended the day Jimmy Lai Chee-ying was arrested, followed by the swift demise of his paper, Apple Daily.

"A million copies were printed for this city of 7.5 million. They sold out. The next day the newspaper's entire archive vanished from the internet. As Beijing imposed its narrative control by force, it was simply too dangerous for other versions of the past to exist," she writes.

Indelible City is an incredible book, deftly weaving these threads together to create a page turner for anyone who is interested in Hong Kong and its history. 

Many times I found myself nodding my head in agreement or thrilled to read someone else had come to a similar observation or conclusion as me. I was not the only one.

Tycoon Offloads Handbags in Auction

Highlight of sale is this Birkin bag, worth up to HK$2M

People collect wine, sneakers, T-shirts, jeans, books, vinyl records, and Christmas ornaments.

Tycoon Joseph Lau Luen-hung collects Hermes bags and is going to offload 77 of them in a Sotheby's online auction next week. It's billed as the biggest sale from a single collector.

How you amass such a collection -- and not be a woman -- is intriguing to start. Hermes bags must be ordered in advance -- they are each made by hand -- and can cost from HK$70,000 to HK$4 million with long waiting lists.

Lau with his wife Kimbie Chan Hoi-wan

He has Birkin and Kelly bags as well as other Hermes designs collected over a 20-year period, and the most expensive one up for grabs is an emerald green Birkin bag made of crocodile with a diamond-encrusted clasp set in white gold. It is estimated to go for between HK$1 million to HK$2 million.

A quick glance through the online catalogue reveals bags in every colour, design and material that must have been stored carefully for years. 

Sotheby's says part of the sale proceeds from the auction will go to charity, but it's believed the 71-year-old Lau needs the money after making some bad stock investments. 

Last year he sold off part of his extensive wine collection too, making a cool five-fold profit of HK$64 million in a Christie's auction. He also sold some Chinese imperial porcelain valued at HK$151 million.

The billionaire who made his money in property development is also an avid art collector and has made headlines buying several massive diamonds at auction for his two daughters, Zoe and Josephine. The gem stones are named after them too.

The 12.03-carat blue diamond for Josephine

Will Lau put up his art collection for auction too? Maybe this is his way of settling his accounts, as in 2017 he cited having health issues...

But really you have to wonder -- a man buying numerous expensive handbags with the goal of selling them later for a profit. Definitely a quirky investment that's going to pay off.