Ms. Birkin was recognized for her musical and romantic relationship with French singer Serge Gainsbourg, with whom she recorded the steamy 1969 duet “Je t’aime … moi non plus” (“I really like you … me neither”). Ms. Birkin’s ethereal, British-accented singing voice interlaced with Gainsbourg’s gruff baritone, and the track helped launch her to worldwide prominence, topping the pop charts in Britain and peaking at No. 58 in america. The track was forbidden in Italy after being denounced within the Vatican newspaper due to its erotic lyrics.
The model Ms. Birkin displayed within the Nineteen Sixties and early Seventies — lengthy hair with bangs, denims paired with white tops, knit mini attire and basket baggage — nonetheless epitomizes the peak of French stylish for a lot of girls world wide.
Ms. Birkin was additionally synonymous with a Hermès bag that bore her identify. Created by the Paris trend home in 1984 in her honor, the Birkin bag grew to become one of many world’s most unique luxurious objects, with a stratospheric price ticket and years-long ready record to purchase it.
In her adopted France, Ms. Birkin was additionally celebrated for her political activism and campaigning for Amnesty Worldwide, Myanmar’s pro-democracy motion, the struggle towards AIDS and different causes. “You may all the time do one thing,” she mentioned in 2001, drumming up assist for an Amnesty marketing campaign towards torture. “You may say, ‘I’m not OK with that.’”
Ms. Birkin joined 5 monks on a march by way of the Cannes Movie Pageant in 2008 to demand that Myanmar let overseas support employees into the nation to assist cyclone victims. Final 12 months, she joined different display and music stars in France in chopping off locks of their hair in assist of protesters in Iran. Actress Charlotte Gainsbourg, Ms. Birkin’s daughter with Serge Gainsbourg, minimize off a snippet of her mom’s hair for the #HairForFreedom marketing campaign as Iran was engulfed by anti-government protests.
Jane Mallory Birkin was born in London on Dec. 14, 1946. Her father, David Birkin, was an officer within the Royal Navy; her mom, Judy Campbell, was an English display and stage actress.
Ms. Birkin’s early film credit included Michelangelo Antonioni’s “Blow-Up” (1966), which was credited with serving to introduce French audiences to her Swinging Sixties model and wonder. She and Gainsbourg met two years later, and he or she remained his muse lengthy after the couple separated in 1980.
Ms. Birkin had a daughter, Kate, with James Bond composer John Barry. Kate Barry died in 2013 at age 46. Ms. Birkin had her third daughter, singer and mannequin Lou Doillon, with French filmmaker Jacques Doillon.
Full data on survivors was not instantly accessible.
Ms. Birkin suffered from well being points lately that saved her from performing and her public appearances grew to become sparse. French broadcaster BFMTV mentioned she suffered a light stroke in 2021, forcing her to cancel exhibits that 12 months. She canceled her exhibits once more in March because of a damaged shoulder blade.
A return to performing was postpone in Might, with the singer saying she wanted a bit extra time and promising her followers she would see them once more come the autumn.
Regardless of her decades-long display and music profession, Ms. Birkin suspected that, for some individuals, the bag named after her could be her most well-known legacy.
The style accent was born of a fortuitous encounter on a London-bound flight within the Nineteen Eighties with the then-head of Hermès, Jean-Louis Dumas. Ms. Birkin recalled that they acquired to speaking after she spilled a few of her issues on the cabin flooring. She requested Dumas why Hermès didn’t make a much bigger purse and sketched out on an airplane vomit sack the form of bag that she’d like.
Dumas then had an instance made for her and, flattered, she mentioned sure when Hermès requested whether or not it may commercialize the bag in her identify.
In a CBS Sunday Morning interview in 2018, Ms. Birkin joked that it could be what she’s finest recognized for. “I believed, ‘Oh gosh, on my obituary, it would say, ‘Just like the bag’ or one thing,’” she mentioned. “Nicely, it may very well be worse.”
