“I am English and I come from an environment where I was always comfortable (…) I could have dinner with anyone and eat my salad with my fingers. I was never concerned about whether things were getting done or not,” summed up Jane Birkin in an interview with vogue in February 2021.
Died this Sunday at the age of 76, the artist marked the world of music but also that of fashion. We remember her wicker basket that she could wear on the red carpet, her crochet or metallic mini-dresses, her famous bangs. There is also this luxury bag, to which she left her name. Beyond music, Jane Birkin has also established herself as a fashion icon.
“It’s all about me”
When she arrived in France at the end of the 1960s, her style contrasted with the groomed side of French women. “There was Françoise Hardy and her Paco Rabanne dress, but she wore it knee length. Me, I had removed rows of stitches to make it look like a long T-shirt”. Ultra-short “party girl” dresses then became her trademark, during her years with Serge Gainsbourg, whose style she influenced. “It’s all mine,” she said. In particular the eight-day beard to sculpt the face.
She buys him soft white leather shoes that he has worn all his life without socks. She also found “much more erotic to be naked under your jeans” and passed “the message”.
On the pictures in fashion magazines, now posted on social networks, she sometimes wears a white dress with a neckline below the navel, sometimes a transparent dress without a bra. “I didn’t realize she was so transparent. This is the flash effect of photographers. If I had known, I would not have worn panties! “, she commented, with humor.
A wicker basket bought on a London market accompanies it everywhere, for casual looks t-shirt-flared jeans up to the climb of the steps in Cannes. “If I was refused entry to Maxim’s because of my basket, I didn’t care. I had that assurance.
The Birkin, one of the most coveted fashion accessories in the world
During a Paris-London flight, she complains to her neighbor that she cannot find a bag suited to her needs as a young mother. The latter is none other than Jean-Louis Dumas, manager of Hermès at the time. A tote with a space dedicated to baby bottles was born in 1984 and bears the name Birkin. It is now one of the most coveted fashion accessories in the world: it takes an average of six years to have a Birkin which is worth on the market between 2,000 and 10,000 euros in cowhide, 25,000-40,000 in crocodile.
In 2015, shocked by the mistreatment of crocodiles, Jane Birkin asked Hermès to rename the “Birkin” Croco until better practices were put in place for its manufacture.
Around 40, Jane Birkin calmed down and changed her style. “I found myself the most interesting at forty” with Agnès b. on oversized pants and slip-on sneakers. “It’s good when you get older (…) At some point, you have to know how to give up ladies’ dresses. You take ten years in sight. It’s like makeup. At a certain age, you have to stop playing with false eyelashes. Otherwise, we become terrifying, ”she said.
It was in an oversized black suit on a white shirt that she sang Baby Alone in Babylon during a Gucci show in Paris in 2018. In 2016, Jane Birkin posed for a tuxedo and white shirt for a Saint Laurent campaign led at the time by designer Hedi Slimane.