After hearing about PETA uncovering the brutal practices behind the making of the bags, Birkin released a statement on Tuesday, revealing she has asked Hermes to remove her name unless they decide to change their practices.
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Birkin said she had signed actor Joaquin Phoenix’s Mercy For Animals petition to “shed exotic skins from your wardrobe”.
Aside from being the muse for the Hermes handbag, Birkin is best known as the former wife of French singer Serge Gainsbourg.
Birkin agreed to lend her name to the bag after sharing a flight with the charismatic late head of Hermes, Jean-Louis Dumas, in the 1980s.
The fairytale might be over though with AFP reporting that the style icon wants her name removed from the bags in protest of the way the Birkin Croco style, made from crocodile skin, is created.
A black crocodile Hermes “Birkin”.
Because of their rarity, crocodile Birkin bags can retail for hundreds of thousands of dollars – that is, if you can find one at all.
The must-have handbag’s pricetag can fetch $100,000 and customers can be on the waiting list for years.
The founder of PETA, Ingrid Newkirk, has thanked Birkin for this gesture in a statement “on behalf of all kind souls in the world”.
We’ve reached out to Hermès for a comment and will update this when we hear back.
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Hermes responded to Birkin’s statement saying it respects her emotions and was also shocked by PETA’s findings. Any breach of rules will be rectified and sanctioned. Hermes specifies that this farm does not belong to them and that the crocodile skins supplied are not used for the fabrication of Birkin bags. “We control their practices and their conformity with slaughter standards established by veterinary experts and by the Fish and Wildlife (a federal American organisation for the protection of nature) and with the rules established under the aegis of the United Nations, by the Washington Convention of 1973 which defines the protection of endangered species”.
