I love that Miss Jane carried a basket everywhere instead of a purse. You know that it probably got annoying lugging a basket around, but Jane was never the type to do anything just halfway, and now it’s her signature. It makes her look like something out of a fairy tale, and extra sweet, too. It’s interesting too to see that she even carried it to black-tie events instead of a fancier purse. Jane’s daughter, Charlotte Gainsbourg, has even said that her mother carried her around in a basket when she was a baby…to nightclubs.
There is a famous Hermès bag named after her—The Birkin bag—that was created in 1984. Apparently the Hermès chief executive Jean-Louis Dumas was sitting next to Jane on a flight, and everything spilled out of her purse. She mentioned to Jean-Louis that she couldn’t find a leather bag she liked, so he designed one for her: voilà, the Birkin bag. However, true to her basket, Jane seldom used the Hermès bag that had been created just for her. I love that she was so dedicated to her own style in the face of mainstream fashion.
Don’t feel bad for old Jean-Louis, though. A bazillion other women do carry the Birkin bag.
This post was written by Tori.
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