"The purse, which she helped design, is named for her: it's the Birkin bag, by Hermès, one of the most famous accessories in the world. Inside are loose papers, notebooks, a tube of Maybelline's Great Lash mascara, a copy of Dostoyevsky's "The Gambler," a Swiss Army knife, pens and markers, a roll of tape. "Well," Birkin says, in heavily accented French, "did you learn anything about me from seeing my bag?" Then a grin: "Even if we reveal everything, we don't show much.""
"Birkin, a British-born actress and singer best known, then as now, for the raunchy pop songs she recorded with her lover Serge Gainsbourg, comes across as both open and enigmatic, singular in a way that is hard to parse. Her beauty is undeniable, but its borders are vague. Proud of her own eccentricity, she is also shy and awkward, with the voice of a little girl-hushed, rushed, and airy."
A 1988 cinematic portrait captures Jane Birkin, nearly forty, sitting before the Eiffel Tower as she empties her namesake Hermès Birkin bag, revealing papers, notebooks, mascara, Dostoyevsky's The Gambler, a Swiss Army knife, pens, and tape. Birkin appears both open and enigmatic, combining British reserve with European sensuality, with a shy, airy voice and eccentric manner. Costumed as Joan of Arc, Bacchus, the Virgin Mary, a cowboy, and a flamenco dancer, she is presented as a modern cultural symbol. Birkin died in 2023. Her undefinable glamour shaped perceptions of cool and distinct sweetness distinguished her from contemporaries.
Read at The New Yorker
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