In 1982, when she wore a white shirt for Lancôme, Isabella Rosellini looked like a white angel. From Paris to New York to Milan, she lived her life, but to the world of women who wanted to be beautiful, Isabella Rossellini was an angel in white, with a white rose.

Then 15 years later, she was Lancôme angel no more, and suddenly, she became a woman, and she got old. She started to get heavier, her face started to get more round,  she started to get wrinkles like all those women who wanted to become her.

But she has not changed the way she dressed her white shirt, white as her Lancôme years; and crisp, even when she is relaxing with her son in her farm;  and up, or the collar, or the buttons, or the cuffs, but up. As if it were a small subtle gesture of fighting against the times, and age.

In 2019, when she walked on the runway of Dolce&Gabbana, with her son, her daughter and her grandson, in a ruffled white shirt, Isabella Rossellini kept her buttons up to the last one. 

Even as grandmother, Isabella Rossellini dresses up her white shirt.

In 1968, Jane Birkin met Serge Gainsbourg, The French pop icon, and she moved to Paris.

And next year, knowing little French, she sang “Je T’Aime … Moi Non Plus,”(I love you, me, neither.), with him, a song Gainsbourg originally wrote for his ex-girlfriend Brigitte Bardot.

The song was banned in many countries after its release, but it was also one of the best sellers at the time. Hauntingly beautiful, it is provocative, very very provocative.

That is the way how Jane Birkin wore her white shirts for the next decade when she was the love and muse of Gainsbourg. No matter what style the shirt she was wearing, she almost always wore it braless.

And she would leave so many buttons unbuttoned, that someone should perhaps design for her a Jane Birkin white shirt with just two or three buttons.

One of the very few times she did not leave her neckline too low was in the French movie La Piscine(The swimming pool) in which she played against the Alain Delon and Romy Schneider. But it was a completely transparent white shirt, with the two front chest pockets the only protection for modesty.(But perhaps it was the decision of the film director Alain Delon, not hers to be provocative.)

Or she would wrap the tails around her waist so high that her own mid section can be seen; or pair with an extremely short shorts and knee high stockings.

And she often wore her white shirts with such an irreverence that she looked as if she just left her bed, sleeping in the shirt the night before.

French model and business woman Inès de La Fressange, in one of her interviews said that one of the most important things she had learned from decades of modeling, was irrespect of clothes. They are nothing but garments. And her style idol? Jane Birkin.

Jane Birkin left Serge Gainsbourg in 1980, after a decade of passionate love. Since then, she wore her white shirts more with tailored pants instead of wide legged jeans, and she could be seen wearing white shirts made of silk. Even with the very deep neckline, she somehow looked less provocative.

So perhaps Jane Birkin wore her white shirt the way she did for her time, the time of free love and flower power, or perhaps she was wearing for Serge Gainsbourg, who was almost 20 years older than her, as his Lolita.

Inès de La Fressange was born to wear a white shirt. Blessed with an androgynous slim figure at the height of 180 cm (5'11"), and a face both beautiful and handsome, she is able to wear anything in a man's wardrobe, from suits to pants to shirts, which she does, fervently, including, of course, the unavoidable white shirt.

For Inès de La Fressange, white shirt seems ubiquitous. She wears it anywhere, and with anything. And she wears it with insouciance, with abandon, with joy, and confidence.

She must have a huge collection of white shirts in her wardrobe, and if there would be a contest of white shirt, she could definitely win the title "the style icon who wears the most white shirt in the world."

But she also wears the same white shirt again and again, with different jackets, pants, shoes and handbags, et voilà, a new look.

And then she writes about it, in her famous style guide La Parisienne written with journalist Sophie Gachet, which sold more than 500,000 copies.

And then she created white shirt, first with Uniqlo, then for her own brand. On her online boutique, she is selling the white shirts she could be seen wearing herself, each one with its own name, such as Martin white shirt, Maureen white shirt, Eugene white shirt.

For Inès de La Fressange, white shirt is part of her life.