Jane Birkin's original Birkin bag sells for $10 million at auction

The very first of the famed Hermès Birkin handbags, owned by the late actor Jane Birkin, sold for $10.1 million on Thursday

The very first of the famed Hermès Birkin handbags, owned by the late actor Jane Birkin, sold for $10.1 million on Thursday.

Following the sale, Sotheby's described it on social media as the most valuable handbag ever to be sold at auction. The black, leather bag was the product of a chance meeting on an airplane in 1984 and has since become a symbol of wealth and elevated social status.

Jane Birkin with her bag in 1990. Gilles Leimdorferr / AFP via Getty ImagesBirkin was a British-born actor with a successful career in French films, starring in world cinema classics like "La Piscine" and "Blow-Up." The legend goes that she was using a straw basket as a purse while on a flight from Paris to London, catching the attention of her in-flight neighbor.

That fellow passenger was Jean-Louis Dumas, then-chief executive of the Hermès fashion house.

According to Hermès, Birkin told Dumas "that she couldn’t find a bag suitable for her needs as a young mother."