Andrew and Sarah Ferguson at Ascot in 2019 (Image: Getty Images)
In ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ Lady Bracknell muttered “A handbag!?” when Jack Worthing revealed he was abandoned in one as a baby. Oscar Wilde was lampooning social class. But there are ‘handbags’ and there are handbags and 131 years after his play scoffed at the pedigree of aristocrats, the most exclusive fashion items still draw celebrities like wasps to a picnic.
So it will come as no surprise that one ex-duchess is believed to be the only royal to have owned the most coveted … the handcrafted leather Hermès Birkin – named after British actress Jane Birkin – commanding prices from £8,800 to several million. At the peak of her profligate spending, Sarah Ferguson in fact owned a whole wardrobe full, each one selling second-hand online for £20,000-plus.
In 2011 she was snapped swinging a black Hermès Birkin featuring gold lettering/hardware; then in 2018 she was seen out and about with a blue ‘Bleu de Prusse 35cm Birkin, Palladium Hardware’.
In 2018 she was spotted dining out at private member’s club Lou Lou’s in Mayfair with a Etoupe Birkin with Palladium Hardware – a taupe-grey limited edition (worth more second-hand than new).
Meanwhile she has also been seen out – at Lou Lou’s again – with her outfit accessorised by a Tosca with Rose Tyrien Lining 30cm Birkin, Palladium Hardware.
So that’s four, for starters! But so what you may ask?
Read more: Sarah Ferguson and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor ‘will stay in touch for 1 reason’
Read more: Fergie eyes escape from UK as ‘rock bottom’ Andrew evicted from Royal Lodge
A Hermes Birkin bag (Image: Getty)
The Birkin is not just a handbag but a passport into society. If you have one ‘you belong’.
This month, a French publication alleged Hermès staff may be Googling customers’ home addresses and scanning their social media profiles to see if prospective customers will do them justice if seen out with one – even wearing the wrong luxury watch to a meeting with staff could stop you being offered the chance to buy a Birkin, it’s been claimed.
Hermès has long insisted that scarcity is a by-product of craft as each bag takes between 12 and 18 hours to create, at the hands of master craftspeople who have to undergo between two and six years of training before starting work in Hermès’ leather workshop.
Additionally, the majority of the Birkin is sewn by hand using the brand’s signature saddle-stitching technique.
Few British royals, if any, have been seen with a Birkin as they are deemed too ostentatious and draw too much attention – but not for Fergie.
And this sums up her Achilles heel – because Fergie’s woes have always been linked to overspending, money and debt.
Sarah Ferguson with her ‘Bleu’ Birkin (Image: FameFlynet.uk.com)
During her marriage to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor she was infamous for exorbitant spending on staff, travel, and lifestyle, resulting in debts of over £3.7 million by 1994 – reportedly covered by Queen Elizabeth II.
After her 1996 divorce she continued to face debt – then in 2009 her lifestyle and wellness firm, Hartmoor, collapsed with over £630,000 in debt.
In 2010 in the Cash-for-Access Scandal, she was filmed accepting £15,000 to facilitate access to Prince Andrew, admitting later she was “substantially” in debt.
She also admitted accepting £15,000 from Jeffrey Epstein in March 2011 to pay off debts.
That same year she gave an interview – after Epstein’s 2008 sex trafficking convictions – to stress her prior involvement with Epstein had been a “gigantic error of judgment”.
She vowed she would never have anything to do with Epstein again, saying: “What he did was wrong and for which he was rightly jailed.”
But in September 2025 a bombshell email surfaced showing that shortly after giving that 2011 interview, she emailed Epstein to apologise for that public act of distancing – calling him a “supreme friend”.
Now she is no longer the Duchess of York, just plain Fergie, and will soon be leaving Royal Lodge for a new home – wherever that may be. She is in unofficial, social exile.
Last year it was revealed Andrew and Fergie were “no longer welcome” at some of the most lavish clubs in London.
So she may still boast a drawer-full of Birkins and desire to strut around Mayfair clutching one – the trouble is, they now don’t want to be seen out with her.