How Jane Birkin became fashion’s most complicated icon

Decades before she became a mythical, ubiquitous image on moodboard platforms like Pinterest and Tumblr, Jane Birkin was an artist. Despite her talents beyond fashion, the doe-eyed, wispy-fringed Londoner quickly became a visual synonym for French-girl style. Perhaps it was because she seemed to be playing herself in the roles she took on – as a plucky teen model in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up, or a seductive Englishwoman with a wicker basket bag in 1969’s Slogan, across from her husband-to-be Serge Gainsbourg, no less. Or maybe it was simply the stylish effortlessness with which she carried herself. But like François Hardy before her, the Anglophone press was always more interested in her appearance than her abilities.

The success she found as a singer was inextricable from Gainsbourg in large part due to the erotically-charged “Je t’aime… moi non plus”, a song he originally wrote for Brigitte Bardot that, when he re-recorded the track with Birkin’s breathy, Brit-inflected vocals, charted worldwide, earning bans in several countries as well as a denunciation from The Vatican. The truth about her voice, according to Marisa Meltzer, author of the new biography It Girl: The Life and Legacy of Jane Birkin, was that it was “high-pitched, a little reedy, and prone to going off-key.” It was far from exceptional, but Birkin was easily able to make songs her own, imbuing them with a real sense of character. The notoriety of “Je t’aime”, paired with her status as half of a French power couple, catapulted her to fame at 24 years old – before she really had a chance to think about crafting a public persona.

The image of her that began to solidify, as Meltzer sees it, was of a ditzy, girlish free spirit who was consistently typecast as an ingénue and often costumed in her own clothes. She was a model, a muse – not a true artistic player. However, It Girl argues, Birkin expressed far more creative savvy than she tends to get credit for. For example, she was almost entirely responsible for Gainsbourg’s style evolution, putting him in interesting pieces that would become signature touches, including his white leather jazz flats. Yes, she sketched a prototype of the Hermès handbag that would become the last word in luxury accessories (an association that ultimately eclipsed her name and entire output in the popular imagination), but she also dared to pair a thigh-skimming dress with bright green underwear deep into her third trimester; she pioneered a more androgynous style of dressing for women – think oversized trousers and cashmere button-ups – decades before it actually caught on; and, more recently, put out small collaborations with lauded brands like A.P.C. or the cult London perfumer Miller Harris. She had the looks, but she also had a keen editorial eye.

After years of being photographed and fawned over by the fashion press, Birkin knew well that her appearance was considered her most valuable asset. But she only became more playful in her approach to styling herself as she aged. Whether it was wearing a dress backward in order to dramatically drop its neckline, showing prolific nipple on the red carpet, or cutting her hair into a pixie with nail scissors on the eve of her first live concert (a gambit intended to divert the audience’s attention from her image to her lyrics) Birkin found myriad ways through which to authentically express her personality. Though many of her most-referenced looks date back to her teens and twenties, Birkin believed that all women, herself included, looked best around forty: “It’s the sort of age where I find there’s a blossoming. It’s what they’ve left behind, it’s what’s coming up, it’s the fragility of adolescence into middle age,” she told Interview in 2020.

Here, Meltzer unpacks the sartorial choices of a woman who was a bonafide star, an audaciously fashionable mutli-hyphenate who drew upon various touchstones to create a series of striking, influential looks that were nevertheless the epitome of nonchalance.

If you don’t have any money and you’re wearing old charity shop clothes, it just looks like you can’t afford anything else. If you do have money, it looks like you’re making a fun and chic decision – Marisa Meltzer

My impression of Jane’s style was that she was willing to wear just about anything, despite being very utilitarian in how she chose her outfits. Even the Birkin bag emerged from this practical sense of personal need, essentially for something to put diapers in. It’s about her privilege in a way – she could get away with wearing whatever as the very svelte and beautiful do – but also a sense of rebelliousness. Can we talk a bit about how that mindset originated?

Marisa Meltzer: She definitely was privileged in terms of her appearance, as well as coming from some amount of money and a well-connected family in London. She grew up in Chelsea, so by the time the Youthquake-era of the 60s hit London, she was already a teenager obsessed with going to King’s Road and buying things to look like Jean Shrimpton and her other heroes.

What was unique about her look was that it mixed the kind of futurism certain British designers were pushing at the time, together with the rich history of British charity shopping, picking up items from the past and incorporating them into her personal style. That is also a bit of a posh thing to do, if you think of the Bohemians and the Bright Young Things. If you don’t have any money and you’re wearing old charity shop clothes, it just looks like you can’t afford anything else. If you do have money, it looks like you’re making a fun and chic decision.

You mention that, as Birkin became more of a cultural figure in the late 60s, she acted as a sort of entry point for the fashion press to cover more countercultural styles, especially as haute couture was in the throes of a crisis period. What was emerging at that time, and why?

Marisa Meltzer: Well, you had Cristóbal Balenciaga closing his fashion house in 1968, and what followed was this real mainstreaming of youth culture, and a desire to look young from every echelon of society rather than just the youth. So you’re seeing high fashion designers adopt some of that more bohemian counterculture, hippie culture, into their work. You’re getting that Talitha Getty in Marrakech kind of Saint Laurent look. There’s also this futurism because of the obsession, in 1969, with the moon landing. You get these mod, forward-thinking designs from Courrèges, as well as Paco Rabanne’s chain mail.

There was also this medieval renaissance-inspired dressing moment, which was particularly popular among musicians and their girlfriends: all the crushed velvet and lace-up knee boots and peasant blouses. Jane Birkin wore all of those things. So you have this real mix of references, past, present and future. And it was at a time when you’re seeing a changing of the guard in terms of high fashion and important designers.

I want to talk a bit about Jane’s relationship with Hermès. What do you think made that particular house such a natural fit for her?

Marisa Meltzer: I mean, they really made a bag that suited her perfectly. What she wanted was a smaller version of the HAC (Haut à Courroies), which is a giant saddle bag that Serge Gainsbourg used to carry around. She wanted something that was more like a tote for all of her stuff, and she had a baby at the time. So they made this bag that was big and utilitarian and a little bit unisex. It was this top-handled thing that you could see a queen or a society lady carrying. It was much more plain and it didn’t have overt branding.

It was also the heritage of Hermès as a saddle maker that went into it – this beautifully made workhorse of a bag that, by strange circumstance, became the most famous bag in the world.

There’s a quote by [Birkin’s third husband] Jacques Doillon that often appears in discussions of her legacy: ‘It’s terrible for you to be known by your object,’ he told her, in reference to her beloved basket bag that he later tried to destroy with his car. The Jane Birkin brand has of course been somewhat eclipsed by the multimillion-dollar bag that also bears her name. But in your opinion was it, ultimately, terrible for her?

Marisa Meltzer: I don’t think so, partially because she never had a financial stake in it. It’s hard for people to understand because it’s easy to think she missed out on money, especially now we’re at a point in time that is so motivated by financial ambition. It takes a lot of privilege to not be, but it didn’t motivate her decision making. That separation between her and the bag really allowed her to live a much happier life than a lot of people would have with that kind of namesake.

Birkin was able to give Gainsbourg a look that had an ugly-sexy quality: Am I a monster? Am I a ladies man? Am I a sensitive Russian soul? – Marisa Meltzer

It seems like Jane mostly resisted the influencer paradigm, but certainly comes across as something of a loyalist. The following is a question you asked yourself in a recent SSENSE interview and I’m keen to hear the answer. Why didn’t she wear labels like Chanel or Dior?

Marisa Meltzer: They just didn’t suit her. She definitely was a loyalist, and I think part of it was relationships. She was friends with Yves Saint Laurent, wore his clothes and was part of his world for a long time. Designers in that era were very territorial too. So there could have been a little ‘you’re mine and not his’ kind of thing going on. But also the codes of Chanel – the camellias, the skirt-suits – they don’t read very Jane Birkin to me. It’s not what she liked, what suited her.

I was really interested to learn about the various ways she’d crafted Serge Gainsbourg’s style. How did these choices – putting him in Levi’s and Boy Scout clothes, the long hair, the sapphire pendant, the precise degree of stubble – serve to make him stand out among his contemporaries?

Marisa Meltzer: When they met he was 40 years old, and he was still wearing suits all the time. It was a lot of double-breasted fitted blazers and turtlenecks. He was a bit like a troubadour, singing innovative but still quite traditional French music that didn’t necessarily translate well to other cultures. This was the late 60s, when the rest of the world was really embracing rock music and youth culture. And I think he needed that from her in order to set himself apart. She added the rock ‘n roll.

He wasn’t dressing like a kid or one of the Rolling Stones, but he looked cool and individual and timeless. In that way, I think it just made him seem more interesting. He already came across as louche. He was a chain smoker, he lived in a house with black walls, he was obsessed with beautiful women. And she was able to give him a look that had the same kind of ugly-sexy [quality]: Am I a monster? Am I a ladies man? Am I a sensitive Russian soul? It was this mix of vulnerable and feminine touches, like the white Repetto Zizi jazz flats, which became his signature. It softened him – they gave him a level of sexy femininity.

In doing all this learning about Jane’s style, was there anything that especially surprised you?

Marisa Meltzer: The more I thought about how it was a reflection of her own artistic freedom and her own willingness to change and evolve and age in public, the more interesting it became for me. Especially from the middle of her life, her mid-30s on, she allowed herself not to cling onto the looks of her youth forever – the miniskirts, the Mary Janes – even though she was so associated with them. She let herself evolve into what else was interesting to her, which in the second half of her life became trousers, loose button-ups and sneakers. It was classic, and it’s very much how women dress today. 

So few women in the public eye do that because they are still grasping at being considered sexual and fashionable when they age past 32. And it wasn’t this hard and fast decision like Pamela Anderson announcing that she wasn’t going to wear make up any more – it was more of a natural evolution. Sometimes you’d still see her in a dress, but it felt more reflective of how a normal person’s style changes, or the way that you think about going to events. Sometimes you’re in the mood to do your hair and put on a sequinned dress, and other times the only thing that’s getting you not to flake is that you’re able to wear jeans and flat shoes. But at the same time, all of her clothes very much looked like they were chosen and worn by the same person, even if the way she looked at 20 was not exactly the same as 60. It all made sense together.

It Girl: The Life and Legacy of Jane Birkin by Marisa Meltzer is published by Atria Books and available November 20