Just when we’d thought designer bag discourse was dying down, a new wave of discussion has filled our timelines for the new year. 2024 was undoubtedly the year of the bag charm, with fashion fans decorating their bags in all number of trinkets, leading to a hearty debate about whether it was more “authentic” to acquire separate charms over a life well-lived, or nab a ready-made keychain from a designer label. While that discussion is beginning to peter out online, if the first couple days of 2025 are anything to go by, designer bags will continue to be the battleground for fashion’s authenticity. Now, the ‘Walmart Birkin’ has entered the chat, dividing fashion fans over how similar it is to the Hermès original, and why people are so interested in emulating the piece in the first place. Scroll down for everything we know about TikTok’s brand new It-bag.

WHAT IS THE ‘WALMART BIRKIN’?

As you may have already guessed, the ‘Walmart Birkin’ is a dupe of Hermès’s Birkin bag, sold online by US megastore Walmart. Though that may seem fairly simple, they’re not to be confused with the authentic Birkin bags Walmart has previously sold on its online store, which went viral back in April 2024 when online sleuths noticed you could nab one for a cool $30,000. While those bags are thought to be authentic Hermès products, the new version, which has been dubbed the ‘Wirkin’ online, is obviously an alternative to the real thing due to its much lower price point and quality. Despite that, the design features are practically identical, with Hermès’s iconic boxy shape, metal hardware and padlock fastening all replicated on the ‘Wirkin’.

HOW MUCH WILL A ‘WIRKIN’ SET YOU BACK?

As we all know, a genuine Birkin can cost anywhere between $10,000 and hundreds of thousands of dollars, or sometimes even millions for those insane special edition variations. In comparison, the ‘Wirkin’ dupe is being flogged by third party sellers on walmart.com for $60-$300, depending on what size and colour you pick. 

WHEN DID THIS WHOLE SAGA BEGIN?

While some on TikTok have been showing off their dupes since November 2024 – and user @jessi.my is seen as one of the OG ‘Wirkin’ influencers – things kicked into overdrive on December 19, when we were all winding down for the Christmas holidays. User @styledbykristi posted an unboxing of her green ‘Wirkin’ which subsequently went viral, currently sitting at 8.7m views and counting. “80 bucks, you can pretend that you’ve got a Birkin,” says Kristi while unpacking the bag. “I mean everybody’s going to probably know that it’s not, because who the hell has money to spend on a real Birkin? Not me.”

Since then, hundreds of videos showing people with their brand new ‘Wirkins’ have surfaced, with many taking the unboxing route, some styling them with bag charms, and others giving advice on how to get one for yourself.

WHAT’S THE ONLINE REACTION BEEN LIKE?

Much like any viral moment, the discourse surrounding the bag seems to be bigger than the amount of people actually purchasing the bag in the first place. As previously stated, the reaction has been pretty divided, with those who got their own variation of the dupe pretty thrilled, and others asking why they even wanted to buy it in the first place. A lot of claims have been thrown around on TikTok, with some users insisting “nobody clocked” the difference between theirs and the original, and others saying that rich people are “shaking in their boots” (which they are probably not).

Elsewhere, people buying the bag have started referring to themselves as ‘Wirkin class’ if you need a crude indication of where lines are being drawn. Clearly, some see the bag as a protest against the exorbitant prices of the OG Birkin without realising that, by buying the dupe, they are taking part in the system which values the original bag so highly in the first place. Many fashion commentators, like those below, have pointed out that participating in the ‘Wirkin’ trend isn’t the moral “gotcha” that a lot of people are making it out to be.

WHAT DO HERMÈS HAVE TO SAY ABOUT IT ALL?

Since the ‘Wirkin’ went viral on TikTok, Hermès have not publicly commented on the Walmart dupes, and are yet to respond to Dazed’s request for comment. Despite this, it’s likely that the French maison will respond to the debacle at some point. Previously, Hermès has acted to protect its intellectual property when others have copied the Birkin, filing a lawsuit against artist Mason Rothschild for creating 100 NFT versions of the bag called MetaBirkins in 2022, winning $133,000 in damages. And back in 2012, the company also successfully sued 34 different websites for a total of $100 million for selling counterfeit Hermès products. Stay tuned to see how this saga unfolds.