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There are few things more boring than the phrase “fashion icon,” but that doesn’t mean there aren’t people who definitively define patterns for their time. Jane Birkin was one of them.
In a sense, it’s an injustice to the British-French actress and singer — who died at the age of 76 of undisclosed causes Sunday in Paris — that she’s largely remembered for luxury. Hermes handbag which inspired her and is named after her. Birkin’s influence, which modeling agent Paul Rowland called her “eternal muse” on Instagram, has been much broader, and extends beyond clothing. She gave unquestionable evidence that the best style stems from the situation.
Chic may be “nothing,” as the opera’s director and choreographer Patrick Kinmonth once remarked, “but it’s the right thing.” Starting in the early days of her fame as muse and colleague of musical artist Serge Gainsbourg, Birkin has always dressed in nothing quite right on.
“She was a role model for a generation of women,” designer Anna Sui said Sunday.
There were the shrunken T-shirts, the ripped jeans, and the espadrilles she preferred. There were the babydoll dresses worn by a few besides actress Mia Farrow by Ilan Akbar. There were the Breton striped jackets that helped popularize it. There was a crochet dress with sheer daisies she once wore to a French Arts Union gala, whose plunging neckline was strategically pinned, if barely, with a brooch. There was the tousled bangs she’s maintained throughout her life that looked like she cut it herself with cuticle scissors.
“Her style was very different from the American style,” Sui said, and it introduced “something new to our fashion vocabulary.” The designer was asked: What exactly is this style? “There was something British about it, that slightly wrinkled English look but combined with classic French codes,” she said.
Perhaps the ultimate example of this is the Hermès Birkin bag. Prior to its invention, Birkin was often depicted carrying a straw basket crammed into it makeup, Miscellaneous keys and tools. “I was famous for carrying a basket,” she said in a 2018 interview on YouTube. “So, obviously, I knew girls like to have a lot of stuff in their handbag.”
It was her oversized basket and overflowing contents that caught the eye of Hermès CEO Jean-Louis Dumas on a flight from Paris to London and inspired him to create a bag roomy enough for all her things. “I love being a stylish person and wearing Kelly,” Birkin once said, referring to a box-shaped handbag created and named after the movie’s star, Grace Kelly. “But I never thought you could get enough of that.”
The bag-style Birkin, in supple leather, was based on an earlier design, the Haut à Courroies, created by Hermès around 1900. With its looped handles, closed with a strap affixed to a distinctive large piece of hardware (and often left unlocked) to display Hermès logo), the bag has become a globally recognized emblem of status and wealth. With a base price of over $10,000, the Perkins remains infinitely desirable and customizable (the Diamond Himalaya version became the most expensive handbag at auction when Sotheby’s sold it in 2022 for more than $450,000) and is worn and collected by celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner. , whose handbag lockers are a subset of internet porn, as well as Jennifer Lopez and Cardi B.
Birkin favored a simple leather model, and in her usually impromptu look, Bohemian fashion She is decorated with charms, worry beads, keys, and even her wristwatch.
“What’s so great and why people are still obsessed with her,” Sui said, referring to the photos that flooded Instagram immediately after the announcement of Birkin’s death, “is that everything institutional now is in fashion, over-the-top and programmed, and she didn’t like it at all. “
When a reporter once asked her if the luxury goods maker had “made” her to buy her namesake handbags, Birkin answered briskly. “Sure,” she said, “but I only have one at a time.”
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