Cel­e­brat­ing the sar­to­r­i­al cin­e­mat­ic lega­cy of Jane Birkin

In the realm of con­tem­po­rary cul­ture few can be said to effec­tive­ly evoke the image of the effort­less­ly cool girl that has become syn­ony­mous with the name Jane Birkin. If you can’t put a face to the name, chances are you have come across throw­away ref­er­ences to Her­mès’ epony­mous Birkin bag in a slew of ear­ly 2000s TV and film. Con­trary to what one might think when see­ing the sheer num­ber of online guides list­ing the Dos and Don’ts of how to qual­i­fy for a chance to pur­chase a $15,000 lux­u­ry hand­bag, the inspi­ra­tion behind what is now a uni­ver­sal­ly rec­og­nized sta­tus sym­bol is quite unlike its namesake.

Born in Maryle­bone, West Lon­don, Jane Mal­lo­ry Birkin was the daugh­ter of Eng­lish film/​stage actress Judy Camp­bell and Navy lieu­tenant com­man­der David Birkin. She grew up in the afflu­ent dis­trict of Chelsea and attend­ed board­ing school, where she recounts being bul­lied for her waifish, androg­y­nous physique, a hall­mark of the quin­tes­sen­tial Birkin look. At 17 Birkin was already mar­ried to Eng­lish com­pos­er John Bar­ry, best remem­bered today for arrang­ing the score for eleven James Bond films. Bar­ry also wrote the score for The Knack…and How To Get It, a British com­e­dy reflec­tive of the Zeit­geist of the Swing­ing Lon­don scene, in which Birkin made her – uncred­it­ed – film debut as ​‘Girl on motorbike’.

She first pops up on screen dur­ing the open­ing cred­its as one of the many iden­ti­cal­ly dressed sex­u­al con­quests of Tolen (Ray Brooks) wear­ing a mid-length skirt and a white ribbed mock neck sweater osten­si­bly with­out a bra – a Birkin sta­ple. Her heav­i­ly eye­lined eyes scour the room for a chair to sit. Next time we see her she’s rid­ing a motor­cy­cle behind the afore­men­tioned casano­va in a black vinyl trench coat and bal­let flats. The ​“char­ac­ter” she por­trays is a mere set piece for the men around her to make off­hand vul­gar remarks about, but for the three min­utes she’s on-screen, you can’t take your eyes off of her.

Birkin’s break­out role came as ​‘The Blond’ in Ital­ian auteur Michelan­ge­lo Antonioni’s 1966 cult-clas­sic Blow-Up, where­in she plays an aspir­ing teen model/​groupie des­per­ate for the atten­tion of a fash­ion pho­tog­ra­ph­er (David Hem­mings). As The Blond, Birkin uses her bud­ding sex­u­al prowess for a chance to be pho­tographed. She shows up to the stu­dio unan­nounced, accom­pa­nied by a friend, don­ning a striped A‑line cut minidress in clash­ing Mod col­ors, opaque pas­tel green tights, blue kit­ten heels and her sig­na­ture bas­ket bag. It’s a look emblem­at­ic of its time, ele­vat­ed by Birkin’s coquet­tish on-screen presence.

The play­ful yet put-togeth­er nature of the out­fit is reflec­tive of a young girl play-act­ing at being an adult by try­ing to dress the part. As the scene goes on, the pho­tog­ra­ph­er grad­u­al­ly becomes more aggres­sive, mak­ing his inten­tions clear by forc­ing the gar­ments off of the girls’ bod­ies. They end up in an impromp­tu cat­fight, find them­selves naked on the floor of the set, and leave with­out pho­tos. It’s an uncom­fort­able scene that con­founds sex­u­al encroach­ment with sex­u­al grat­i­fi­ca­tion – the fram­ing of the scene plays down the grav­i­ty of the vio­la­tion, made all the more dis­turb­ing by the con­trast of The Blonde’s wide-eyed naïveté and cor­re­spond­ing­ly whim­si­cal wardrobe.

Fol­low­ing the inter­na­tion­al suc­cess of Blow-Up, Birkin had her cross-cul­tur­al break­through in Jacques Deray’s siz­zling 1969 erot­ic psy­chodra­ma The Swim­ming Pool (or La Piscine) – fea­tur­ing per­haps her most mem­o­rable on-screen wardrobe – which went on to solid­i­fy her sta­tus as a style icon of the late 60s and by her own admis­sion enabled her to stay and pur­sue a career in France. She stars oppo­site fel­low New Wave cin­e­ma icons Alain Delon and Romy Schnei­der who por­tray Jean-Paul and Mar­i­anne respec­tive­ly, a cou­ple whose vaca­tion in a lux­u­ri­ous St. Tropez vil­la gets inter­rupt­ed by the sud­den arrival of Marianne’s ex-lover Har­ry (Mau­rice Ronet) and his 18-year-old daugh­ter Pene­lope (Birkin).

We first meet Pene­lope as she steps out of her father’s con­vert­ible in a black and white ging­ham miniskirt paired with a sheer white blouse, heeled bal­let flats and over­sized sun­glass­es, car­ry­ing the famil­iar bas­ket bag which was Birkin’s totem. She huffs and puffs with bore­dom, as we lat­er learn, hav­ing been dragged along for the ride as her father’s prized pos­ses­sion and parad­ed around for how her youth and beau­ty reflects on him.

We see Pene­lope in a vari­ety of dif­fer­ent looks in a sim­i­lar col­or palette through­out the film: loung­ing by the pool in a white cro­chet one-piece she wears over her biki­ni; frol­ick­ing in an A‑Line ging­ham mini dress in the gar­den; and danc­ing in a white shirt and bell bot­tom jeans at a house par­ty. Penelope’s wardrobe is text­book Birkin – clas­sic pieces styled to bring out the play­ful­ness behind the coy exte­ri­or of her girl­ish demeanor and del­i­cate fea­tures. But it’s not the clothes them­selves that fos­ter that well-cov­et­ed impres­sion of casu­al ele­gance, rather it’s the sense of per­son­al style Birkin imbues in them through the way she car­ries herself.

With­in the con­text of the film Penelope’s wardrobe con­trasts with that of Marianne’s ele­gant sexy back­less dress­es, a visu­al indi­ca­tor of the rival­ry induced by the age dif­fer­ence between the two women. This dis­tinc­tion is most potent at Harry’s funer­al, where we see Pene­lope in a black micro­mi­ni tunic, where­as Mar­i­anne dons a more demure, white trapeze-shaped dress. Much like Birkin her­self, Pene­lope is the epit­o­me of youth­ful glam­or, rep­re­sent­ing the styl­is­tic sen­si­bil­i­ties of a new gen­er­a­tion; less con­ser­v­a­tive than its predecessors.

But with age comes per­spec­tive – a max­im that is cer­tain­ly reflect­ed in the mat­u­ra­tion of Birkin’s per­son­al style. By the time Agnès Var­da got a chance to turn the cam­era on the woman inside the clothes, she had switched out mini skirts and bell bot­toms for over­sized blaz­ers and boyfriend-cut jeans – going so far as to cringe at pic­tures of her­self from the 60s. Even style icons expe­ri­ence sec­ond-hand embar­rass­ment when faced with the en-vogue fash­ion choic­es of their youth, no mat­ter how ground­break­ing and time­less they might be con­sid­ered in ret­ro­spect. Nev­er­the­less, the sar­to­r­i­al lega­cy of Jane Birkin lives on: whether it be through her cin­e­mat­ic wardrobe that con­tin­ues to influ­ence the tastemak­ers of today or a hand­bag so well rec­og­nized that its name pre­cedes its func­tion, the name Jane Birkin will for­ev­er be remem­bered for the woman with­in the clothes.