Legacy Wrapped in Leather: Handbags as Heirlooms
Morgane Halimi-Global Head of Handbags and Fashion Zurich
With Morgane Halimi and global collectors on why the next generation will inherit Kellys, not just canvases.
In the hierarchy of inheritance, certain objects have long held the highest rank: paintings, sculptures, properties, sometimes a library. Handbags sat lower down — beloved, yes, but “personal effects,” not “important assets.”
The Brikin Voyageur, owned by Jane Brikin between 2003 and 2007
That hierarchy is dissolving.
For the first time, Sotheby’s is staging a full Collectors’ Week in the UAE capital: five live auctions on 5 December, a billion-dollar exhibition of art, jewellery, watches, handbags, collector cars and real estate, and a programme of talks and masterclasses that feels closer to a biennale than a sales week.
At the centre of this new map is Abu Dhabi — not as a satellite, but as a hub.
Hermès Himalaya Bag
The Department That Didn’t Exist
“When I started in 2021, handbags were not yet a fully recognised department,” she recalls.
“My role was to create that framework. Now it’s a global division, with sales across three continents — and, for the first time, a major presence in the Middle East.”
Handbag sales at Sotheby’s have increased by roughly 60% in four years. The clientele? Hybrid.
“There’s a lot of crossover,” Morgane says.
“Clients who love jewellery often love bags. But what’s striking is that handbag buyers are younger, and largely women. We see collectors in their 20s and 30s building very thoughtful collections.”
These women aren’t buying one bag per season. They are curating coherent narratives: a Himalaya as a cornerstone, a limited-edition Kelly for its design history, a personal Birkin acquired not for logo alone but for legacy.
Hermes Mini Kelly Collection
Heirlooms You Actually Wear
One of the reasons handbags are emerging as heirlooms is deceptively simple: you can live with them.
“For me, true luxury is something you can use, repair, cherish for an entire lifetime,”Morgane notes.
“You can carry it to a dinner, you can let it age, and then you can hand it down. That’s what the younger generation wants —
longevity and story.”In the Gulf, this takes on a specific character.
“Here, collectors really understand craftsmanship,”she says.
“But they also wear their pieces. They dress, they go out, they live with their bags. It’s a mix of strong knowledge and a lifestyle that actually supports owning these things.”
A painting might be insured, climate-controlled, rarely touched. A Kelly, by contrast, will bear the imprint of a life: the slight softening of the handle where a hand always rests, the invisible trace of countless dinners, flights, thresholds crossed.
When that bag passes to the next generation, it carries not just its Hermès provenance, but the intimacy of a life lived.
Hermes Chaine D’Ancre Sac Haute Bijouterie
Scarcity, Story, and the New Collector
Morgane is clear that it isn’t any bag that becomes an heirloom — it’s the one with the right combination of rarity and narrative.
“The pieces we’ve brought for private sale here are either extremely limited or truly one-of-a-kind,” she says.
“We’re talking about the highest level of craftsmanship in handbags. We want every visitor to understand how special they are.”
As handbags move fully into the category of “serious collecting,” their emotional role is expanding too. Increasingly, clients are thinking in terms of family libraries of objects — where a Kelly might sit conceptually beside a painting, a jewel, a watch.
In that library, a daughter or granddaughter may one day choose: not just “Which canvas do I hang?” but “Which bag do I carry into my own life?”
And somewhere in that future wardrobe, a well-worn Himalaya or a Birkin with a handwritten note inside will be opened like a book — its leather a page, its scratches and softness the script.
Words by Oona Chanel for Author Magazine
Pictures courtesy Ron John
