IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters
By
Chris Lavergne
Erling Haaland came to the World Cup to make history with Norway. You do that. But he also quietly built one of the most amazing Birkin collections out there.
The 25-year-old Manchester City striker scored 16 goals in just 8 qualifying games to take Norway to their first World Cup since 1998, and they are through to the Round of 32 in North America, where Norway face the Ivory Coast. At 6’5″, he is a two-time Premier League Golden Boot winner, Champions League winner, and central to City’s 2023 treble. Celebrity Net Worth puts him at $100 million as of June 2026, and Forbes lists him among the world’s highest-paid athletes, with an estimated $80 million a year between his Manchester City contract (reported in the range of $33 to $60 million) and his Puma deal.
He also quietly built one of the most serious Birkin collections of any athlete. Almost no one closed it until stylist Jack Savoie dug up years of Instagram photos and paparazzi and documented everything: more than $300,000 in bags, including the limited edition Endless Road HAC Birkin 50, the Togo leather Birkin 50, the H Togo HAC Casaque ehl, the Birkin00style Birkinfgo 40, several $45,000 to $57,000 each. The detail that broke everyone’s brains was the small Birkin Box placed inside the big one.
A large amount came from his personal use. Last year, he reportedly bought his long-term girlfriend, Isabel Haugseng Johansen, a Hermès Himalaya Birkin for an estimated $435,000. The Himalaya is one of the most coveted Birkins out there, usually with pale Niloticus crocodile skin and diamond hardware. It is not a bag that a person goes into a store to buy.
Johansen is from Bryne, a small town in Norway where Haaland started playing football at the age of 5. She was a real player in her own right, making her debut for Bryne FK’s women’s team at the age of 13 and scoring 23 goals in 36 games before leaving due to the pandemic. The two knew each other in high school, but it was Johansen who reached out first at a young age. They started dating around 2021 and welcomed a son in December 2024.
Birkins are conservative by design. Created in 1984 and named after actress Jane Birkin, each one is handmade in France and takes around 48 hours of skilled work. There is no real public waiting list. Acquiring a rare model often requires a significant upfront investment with Hermès and a cultivated relationship with a particular retail partner, making the deep collection, assembled over the course of the 20s, harder to pull off than most of his goals.
He has never positioned himself as a fashionista. He doesn’t post cargo grids or chase street style photographers. The kid from Bryne who started playing at age 5 happens to have one of the most serious Birkin shelves in sports, and he’d like you to talk about goals.
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