Erling Haaland's $500K Birkin Collection Proves the World Cup's Biggest Flex Isn't On the Pitch
Erling Haaland scores goals for a living. This World Cup, he is the fourth highest-paid player on the tournament roster, sitting behind only Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, and Kylian Mbappé, with a net worth Forbes puts around $80 million. But the number turning heads in fashion circles this month has nothing to do with his Manchester City contract. It is the appraisal on his handbag collection: roughly $500,000 in Hermès leather goods, much of it in limited-edition pieces that most collectors will never even see in person.
This is not a novelty story about an athlete with money to burn. Haaland’s collection is a masterclass in exactly the shift we wrote about last fall, when Timothée Chalamet’s orange Hermès Kelly and A$AP Rocky’s crossbody bags signaled that men had finally caught up to what women have known forever. A great bag is not an accessory. It is a statement, a store of value, and increasingly, a serious collector’s game.
The bag before the Birkin
Most of Haaland’s collection is built around the Hermès Haut à Courroies, known to insiders as the HAC. If the name is unfamiliar, the history is worth knowing: the HAC actually predates the Birkin. It was designed for equestrians who needed something sturdy enough to travel with, and it became the blueprint for the entire Hermès leather bag lineage. HAC bags run larger than a standard Birkin and carry a quiet credibility among people who know their Hermès history, precisely because they are not the bag everyone recognizes on sight.
Haaland owns at least four HAC 50s, including two limited “Endless Roads” editions with a mountain-highway motif that trade for around $45,000 apiece. His Evercalf Toile Cargo HAC 40 is valued near $50,000, and a black Multi-Pocket HAC 40 comes in around $69,500. Add a HAC Rock Black at roughly $68,000, a Black and Orange Togo HAC Casaque 40 near $33,000, and a Kelly Depeches 25 that resells for upwards of $13,000, and the math starts to look less like a footballer’s indulgence and more like a deliberate portfolio.
The bag that outbid him
Here is the part of the story that deserves more attention than it is getting: Haaland’s girlfriend, Isabel Haugseng Johansen, owns her own showpiece. A Hermès Birkin 25 in Himalaya Niloticus Crocodile, reportedly acquired at auction for $440,000, a single-bag price tag that rivals his entire collection combined. The Himalaya Birkin is one of the most difficult pieces in the world to acquire at any price, let alone through a public sale, and its presence in this story is a reminder that the most interesting collectors are not always the ones with the World Cup contract.
Isabel and Erling grew up in the same small town of Bryne, Norway, played on the same childhood soccer team, and have been together since 2021. They share a son born in December 2024. It is a detail that reframes the whole collection: this is not a man performing wealth for an audience. It is two people who understand exactly what they are buying and why, choosing pieces that will hold their value long after this World Cup is a memory.
Why this matters beyond the pitch
We have said it before and Haaland’s closet proves it again: luxury handbags from respected houses do not depreciate the way most menswear does. A Hermès Kelly or HAC bought today, cared for properly, tends to be worth more in a decade, not less. That is the quiet logic behind every name we have watched embrace this category, from Harry Styles to Bad Bunny to Jacob Elordi, and it is the same logic driving the broader resale market, which is on pace to pass $13 billion in the US by 2030.
For our clients, male or female, the takeaway is not “buy what a soccer star buys.” It is that the smartest collectors, on either side of the relationship, are treating handbags as what they actually are: wearable, wantable, resellable assets. Haaland’s collection is impressive. Isabel’s single bag might be the smarter trade.
Ready to build a collection with the same discipline? At Purseonal Shopper, we authenticate and source the pieces worth owning, from classic Birkins and Kelly bags to the harder-to-find HAC and limited editions collectors are quietly chasing. Reach us at tanya@purseonalshopper.com or browse current pieces at www.purseonalshopper.com.
