Singer and actress Jane Birkin has passed away at the age of 76. According to French media, she was found lifeless in her home in Paris on Sunday morning.
The singer recently canceled her concerts for health reasons. “I’ve always been a great optimist and I realize I still need some time to get back on the podium,” she said in a statement last May.
Jane Birkin was born in 1946 in London and moved to France in the late 1960s. After her first marriage to composer John Barry, she met Serge Gainsbourg. Together they form an iconic couple that stormed the charts in 1969 with the duet Je t’aime moi non plus. Gainsbourg initially wrote the song with Brigitte Bardot, but she thought it was too daring.
In the early 1970s, Birkin focused mainly on her film career, including as the lesbian lover of Brigitte Bardot in Don Juan 73 by Roger Vadim. In 1987 she starred in the movie kung fu master by Agnès Varda, for which she also wrote the script. Her role of a forty-year-old woman who starts a relationship with a fifteen-year-old boy caused some controversy.
Birkin had three children by three different men. She had a daughter Kate Barry with the British composer John Barry. Kate died in 2013 after falling from the window of her apartment in Paris. With Gainsbourg she had a second daughter, actress Charlotte Gainsbourg. A third daughter, Lou Doillon, followed later with director Jacques Doillon.
In the fashion world, Birkin is best known for its world-famous Birkin bag. If you want such a bag, usually made of crocodile leather, in your collection, you have to put a lot of money in the bag. The price of the iconic bag starts at 5,000 euros and rises to around 140,000 euros. The story goes that the bag was named after Birkin because the singer could not find a suitable leather bag for everyday use. Hèrmes’ then chief designer, Jean-Louis Dumas, caught the story and decided to design a bag that met Jane’s requirements. Some time later, Jane’s dream bag was delivered to her apartment with a note from Dumas. He had named the bag Birkin.
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