The Muse of Muses
Jane Birkin

That aura of nonchalance may be the key to understanding why Birkin is still a near-constant influence for creative people of all stripes around the world. Especially now, when the currency of our time is attention via likes and followers, not trying too hard seems genuinely revolutionary and may be the most aspirational attitude of all to try on for size.

Birkin barely knew one word of French when she arrived in Paris from her native London in the late ’60s. She was freshly divorced from John Barry—the man she married when she was just 17, best known for composing the James Bond theme and the father of her first daughter—but that didn’t matter much. Her work was already speaking plenty. After a few small movie roles, her profile in Swinging London had risen dramatically when she appeared nude in Michelangelo Antonioni’s perennially-referenced 1966 film about a London fashion photographer, Blow-Up, released when Birkin was 20. It also helped that she had started dating one of France’s biggest stars, the legendary French singer-songwriter-director Serge Gainsbourg.

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Together, Birkin and Gainsbourg represented a life full of passion and romance, and more than a little controversy. He was the immeasurably famous Continental lothario enveloped in cigarette smoke; she the stunning, fresh-faced ingenue. They oozed sex appeal, sometimes scandalously so. Cameras followed them wherever they went, including arm-in-arm at one appearance where she wore a sheer-black dress with nothing underneath but a pair of black briefs. In photos from the event, she mostly looks like a beacon of uber-comfort, both with her body and her choice of outfit. Pictured smiling widely, her sturdy heels and clunky wicker basket are in stark contrast to the other women in the background, clutching clutches, fully covered up in clothes of the era, some even balancing coats draped over their shoulders.

 

But the items she wore that made the biggest impact were often the ones she turned to the most, which were usually the least remarkable at face value, like her well-documented love for denim. A pair of jeans, in practice, might be the most basic of basics and something most of us have steadily worn throughout our lives. Why then, does it still look like the height of glamour when Birkin wore them out at night or
while strolling through a French seaside town?

For one thing, every pair of Birkin’s jeans was perfectly uncomplicated. They were never overly distressed or studded or even embellished with a noticeable designer label. She never asked them to do more than what denim is meant to do at its most primal level: to form a reliable pair of pants one can wear over and over again. Like her gloriously uneven bangs, which sparked a lasting trend in their own right, her jeans were unfussy. They were sometimes white, often flared or bootcut (it was the ’70s, after all) but didn’t beg for attention by being super skintight or particularly noteworthy on their own. If they had been, it might have casted doubt on Birkin’s claim that she wasn’t driven to flaunt herself in exchange for attention. You can imagine her waking up in the morning next to Gainsbourg, pulling on the same pair of jeans she’d worn the day before, grabbing her basket and leaving the flat to record a song, play a cameo in a film or attend a premiere as though it were as normal as going out to buy milk. Her go-to tops, often V-necks and T-shirts, occasionally worn underneath a blazer, reinforced her low-maintenance, low-key vibe, a look she continues to champion during her increasingly rare public appearances today.

Her easygoing style might have, on some level, been a reaction to the frenzy around her. She and Gainsbourg, for all of their professed love for one another, didn’t exactly have a peaceful relationship. And unlike celebrities today, neither could be bothered to avoid having their picture taken at the airport or while puffing on a Gauloise (or both). That lack of regard extended to their time out in public. Birkin often speaks of the good times with Gainsbourg in a way that makes them seem like something from a hard-to-believe romantic movie. On their first night out on the town together, she says they danced at a Russian nightclub in Paris, hobnobbed with jazz singers, transvestites and prostitutes and then ate croissants in Pigalle at dawn. The bad times were equally epic. One infamous night, the couple got into an argument in a restaurant in Paris. Gainsbourg dumped out her purse in anger; Birkin hit him with a pie. On the way home, she dramatically jumped into the Seine. Retelling that story years later to The Daily Mail, she referred to her marriage as “jolly good fun.”

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Like her gloriously uneven bangs, which sparked a lasting

trend in their own right, her jeans were unfussy.

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Even when they were on placid terms, the pair found public controversy. In 1969, Birkin and Gainsbourg released a version of his song “Je t’aime…moi non plus” (that roughly translates as “I love you...me neither”). As the song progresses, Birkin’s breathy vocals gradually descend into sighs and moans of pleasure that sound so authentic, many assumed it was a recording of them going at it. The Vatican condemned it and the track was banned in several countries, including by the BBC in Birkin’s native England. It still went to number one there.

Birkin wasn’t especially troubled by any this, writing off the scandal over “Je t’aime” as, essentially, NBD. “I don’t know what all the fuss was about,” she told The Guardian in 2004. Decades earlier, she doubled down on that sentiment when she played a role in Gainsbourg’s unabashedly sexual film of the same name in 1976. Consistently, she’s proven how unbothered she is by what others may think.

She thought she looked most beautiful in the film version of “Je t’aime,” when she wore no makeup and had her hair super short. It was a look—or as she may have characterized it, not much of a look at all—that she repeated when she performed at age 40 during a concert at the Bataclan in Paris, her first ever. She said she did so to make sure people focused on her music and not her appearance.

It’s one thing for a famous person to say she doesn’t care how she looks for the sake of seeming humble or down to earth despite having ample money and access to fine clothes. But it’s another story when that person has consistently lived her life in that way for half a century—one of Birkin’s traits that’s particularly inspiring today.

 

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By way of example, consider Birkin’s handbag of choice for years, the round wicker baskets that have been her steadfast companions in public as much as the men in her life or her three children. Reportedly, they were originally acquired from a fishing village in Portugal, and Birkin carried her baskets everywhere, not just as a beach bag or for running daily errands. You can see them in photos of Birkin with Gainsbourg on the red carpet, greeting photographers fresh off of a flight or hanging in the crook of her arm while she balanced one of her daughters in the other. The basket is the antithesis of an It Bag; it never changed year to year and was functional over anything else.

There’s irony in the fact that the Hermѐs Birkin, one of the world’s priciest and most coveted handbags, was named in her honor. But even the origin story for that is in line with her breezy sensibility. The bag was initially created in the 80s after Birkin was upgraded on an Air France flight and ended up seated next to the then-CEO of Hermѐs, Jean-Louis Dumas. Together, they designed a new bag that was imagined to be more practical than the one Birkin was carrying at the time. Fittingly, while fans submit to waiting lists and shell out thousands of dollars to take home one of their own, Birkin plasters hers with stickers and good luck charms. She even told Vogue she thinks they look best when they’ve been kicked around and lived in, copping to letting her cat climb inside and occasionally using it as a rain hat while her other belongings are transported in a plastic bag. It’s a concept that would send chills down the spines of luxury shoppers around the world.

 

And yet Birkin, who rejects so many of the notions fashion types often promote—from conspicuous consumption to the never-ending quest for something new and even to her own legacy as an icon—is still a name, a face and an attitude that so many of the same people attempt to imitate time and again. It’s a testament to the idea that, from a style perspective, being above concern is the most stylish way to be, a luxury more elusive than any $10,000 bag. Let everyone else do the begging for approval; the most surefire way to be admired for being you might simply be to live how you like and wear what you want and bid adieu to caring about all the rest. And if you really want to mimic Birkin, learn a bare minimum of French like she once did to great effect.

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