Jane Birkin, Inspiration Behind the Hermès Birkin Bag, Dies at 76!

Updated On March 18, 2024 | Published By: Denise | In Career , Death , Interesting Facts

Jane Birkin dies at 76. source: Page Six

Actress and singer Jane Birkin passed away at her home in Paris.
The actress was the inspiration behind the famous Birkin bag.
Jane’s cause of death is still under investigation.

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Francophile Jane Birkin dies at 76

Jane Birkin, an English actress, singer, and fashion icon passed away at her home in Paris. She was 76. French outlet Le Parisien confirmed the news of her passing.

The outlet reported that Birkin died at her Paris home on Sunday. The cause of her death is yet to be revealed.

The unfortunate news of her demise comes just two months after the Blow-Up actress canceled multiple concerts citing health issues just two years after she suffered a stroke.

After the news of her death broke, French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted,

“Because she embodied freedom, because she sang the most beautiful words of our language, Jane Birkin was a French icon.”

He added,

“A complete artist, her voice was as sweet as her engagements were fiery. She bequeaths us tunes and images that will never leave us.”

Jane Birkin — Birkin is survived by two daughters. source: Page Six

The style icon is survived by two daughters: Charlotte, 51, and Lou, 40.

Birkin started living in France after her split from her first husband, James Bond composer John Barry.

The couple shared a daughter named Kate who tragically passed away in 2013 at age 46. However, the two separated shortly after their daughter’s birth.

Birkin then went on to star in the 1969 film Slogan alongside her future partner, Serge Gainsbourg.

The two welcomed daughter, Charlotte in 1971 and stayed together until the actress left Gainsbourg in 1980.

In 1982, Jane gave birth to her third daughter, Lou, with French filmmaker Jacques Doillon.

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How did Birkin inspire the Hermès bag?

Many of us know that she is the inspiration behind the now-famous Hermès bag of the same moniker. The actress revealed that the iconic bag happened to be after a chance encounter on a flight in the 80s.

Birkin told The New York Times Style Magazine in 2010, per Vogue,

“I was on an airplane when a plastic bag holding all my things broke and everything fell out—my date book, papers, everything,”
“Just as I was saying how I wish Hermès would make a bag that could fit all my things, the man sitting next to me happened to work for Hermès – it was Jean-Louis Dumas, the head designer.”

The Swimming Pool star added,

“They already had the Kelly bag, named after Grace Kelly, so he began work on the Birkin bag. I went down to the atelier and he had made it in cardboard. And we talked about it and I said they should make some changes, like making pockets bigger. And that’s how it was made.”

In an interview with Vogue France in 2018, Birkin said about death,

“We are all a little scared of death when we feel it approaching.”
“The idea is so distant, so abstract. We have trouble imagining it. Over the last three years, I have come close to it twice and, surprisingly, I didn’t panic. I was more frightened of not having time to say what I wanted to say, to leave things in order, to be forgiven.”

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