Actor and singer Jane Birkin, who made France her home and charmed the country with her English grace, natural style and social activism, has died at age 76.
The London-born star and fashion icon was known for her musical and romantic relationship with French singer Serge Gainsbourg. Their songs notably included the steamy “Je t’aime moi non plus” (“I Love You, Me Neither”). Birkin’s ethereal, British-accented singing voice interlaced with his gruff baritone in the 1969 duet that helped make her famous and was forbidden in Italy after being denounced in the Vatican newspaper.
The style Birkin displayed in the 1960s and early 1970s — long hair with bangs, jeans paired with white tops, knit mini dresses and basket bags — still epitomizes the height of French chic for many women around the world.
Birkin was also synonymous with a Hermes bag that bore her name. Created by the Paris fashion house in 1984 in her honor, the Birkin bag became one of the world’s most exclusive luxury items, with a stratospheric price tag and years-long waiting list to buy it.
In a 2018 interview with “CBS Sunday Morning,” Birkin joked that the bag might be what she’s best known for.
“When I went to America, I don’t know in what interview, they said, ‘You mean Birkin, like the bag?’ I said, ‘Well, now, the bag is going to sing!’ I thought, ‘Oh gosh, on my obituary, it will say, ‘Like the bag’ or something,'” Birkin said to senior culture and senior national correspondent for CBS News Anthony Mason.
“It’s so funny that, after all this, you might be known for a bag,” Mason said.
“I might. Well, could be worse,” Birkin said.
