Elegant style icon wardrobe essentials: Jane Birkin in white shirt

29/4/2021

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.