Jane Birkin, the Everlasting Style Icon, Has Died

Jane Birkin, the prolific Anglo-French musician and actress whose style inspired generations of fashion enthusiasts, has died at age 76, according to the French culture ministry. The style icon who inspired the Hermès Birkin is survived by her daughters Charlotte Gainsbourg and Lou Doillon.

Born on December 14, 1946, in London to actress Judy Campbell and naval officer David Birkin, Jane rose to fame in the late 1960s, when she traveled to France to work in the country’s film industry and met her former husband and lifelong collaborator, the late singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg. She first gained notoriety for her seductive appearances in both Michelangelo Antonioni’s cult 1966 film Blow-Up, in which she performed nude, and on Gainsbourg’s explicit 1969 duet “Je t’aime… moi non plus,” which became a symbol of freedom and sexual liberation.

Birkin continued to live in her adopted France and appeared in 65 films over the course of her career, receiving several accolades including César Award nominations—France’s equivalent to the Academy Awards—for Gainsbourg’s first film, Je t’aime moi non plus (1976), as well as then-partner Jacques Doillon’s La Pirate (1984). As a musician, the multi-hyphenate cultivated a six-decades-long career after releasing her first solo album, 1973’s Di Doo Dah, and continued to perform up until last May, when she canceled a handful of performances due to health concerns. Birkin also received the French Ordre National du Mérite in 2004 and 2015, and was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2001 for her services to acting and British-French cultural relations.

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While she was launched into the public eye due to her highly-publicized relationship with Gainsbourg, which ended in 1980, Birkin also became an instant style star for her effortless bohemian looks and penchant for minidresses. Following the separation, she embraced baggier trousers and oversized silhouettes. Her namesake bag, born from a chance in-flight encounter with the chief executive of Hermès, was released in 1984 and is now one of the most coveted bags in history—though Birkin herself has always favored wicker baskets.

Of her enduring status as a style icon, Birkin told Harper’s Bazaar last year, “That anyone would want to wear things I did or look like me, I was amazed!,” adding that she thought her clothes “were rather boring. Nice, but boring.” That she herself found it difficult to define the appeal of her iconic style shows how Birkin defined the essence of je ne sais quoi, with an effortless elegance that has spoken to aspiring trendsetters around the world.

Quinci LeGardye is an LA-based freelance writer who covers culture, politics, and mental health through a Black feminist lens. When she isn’t writing or checking Twitter, she’s probably watching the latest K-drama or giving a concert performance in her car.