“surge [Gainsbourg] I used to say, ‘Oh, lick my lips and throw my hair back,'” singer and actor Jane Birkin recalls of the fashion advice her former partner gave her. said, ‘No, I don’t do it anymore.’ I don’t want to care what I look like at all!About 40 years ago, she wore minidresses and hot pants to the understated style of baggy trousers and men’s shirts. It was when I replaced it with boyish charm.
The uniform marks the beginning of a new collaboration with APC, the beloved label started by Jean Touitou, who has defined uncompromising French casualwear for over 30 years. This is not an instance of his two friends conspiring, but an instance of two eccentrics meeting a match, as he explained on a joint call. “We’re not friends!” Touitou roared with laughter, but “clearly we have a lot in common.” It was Touitou’s idea to work with Birkin. Birkin notes that the last actress was Catherine Deneuve. “I thought it would be really chic to do it after Deneuve!”
“I’m amazed that someone wears what I wear or looks like me!”
The austere, tight collection resembles what the now 75-year-old Birkin wears every day. Jeans, pants, t-shirts, sweaters, coats, sneakers, straws in her bag, waist in her bag. Taking cues from what she owns, “I just drew some pictures of what the summer, winter and spring uniforms would look like,” explains Birkin. The workmen pants she started wearing “because I was too fat to wear jeans,” and “finished here beautifully,” are revamped versions of one of her favorites, made of soft cotton with pockets. It is attached. When she doesn’t want to carry a bag, she prefers to stuff her keys and change. “Everything I found was pretty good, but I thought maybe we could do better,” she says.
“She didn’t need us to create the perfect wardrobe,” Touitou adds. There’s a big difference, and this is what we’ve been doing.” Touitou feels that the project is a return to APC’s radical roots as creators of outstanding basics, stating, “We are committed to creating these works. We have been working on creating it in the very right way.”
Birkin obsessively thinks about the smallest features of what she wears and how the slightest change can turn something great into something indispensable. was hoping to lower the . The lining of the tennis shoes is faux sheepskin. Because she gets a little chilly in her sneakers during winter. She “always finds it scary to take off her socks and notice the marks on her ankles.”
A regular on designer mood boards and the name and source of inspiration for Hermès’ most famous bags, Birkin had never designed a line before. Her daughter, Lou Doillon, has kept the pressure on her, showing her her enthusiasm for what her image continues to inspire on social media. “I was amazed that someone could wear what I wore or look like me!” She thought her own clothes were “rather boring.” Good but boring. Perhaps the reason Birkin’s lasting look is that she’s one of the first stars we’ve come to know through her most casual, unstyled outfits: her shirt and jeans, not her gowns and glamorous shots. Because you are alone.
“Invisibility is an art,” thinks Touitou. “Getting attention for what we do, say, or write, not what we look like.” , he says, was “very elegant even when invisible.”
The collection will launch on September 12th. Harper’s Bazaar.
Rachel Tashjian is fashion news director. Harper’s Bazaar, works on both print and digital platforms.formerly she GQHe was the first fashion critic and deputy editor-in-chief. garage and as a writer vanity fairShe has written for publications including book forum When art forumand author of the invite-only newsletter Opulent Tips.
