It could seem trivial to tell someone’s life story through their wardrobe. But in the case of Jane Birkin, it feels fitting. Her story starts with the distinct absence of clothes, however. In London’s Swinging ’60s, a 20-year-old Birkin burst onto screens with a nude scene in the mystery thriller Blow-Up, in which she played “the blonde”. She only did the scene, she explains, because her then-husband – the British composer John Barry – told her she would not have the courage to show up on set naked. Show up – and show him – she did. Blow-Up won the top prize at the 20th Cannes Film Festival, but it was Birkin’s scene that stole the show.
For a self-described “shy English-girl”, who was bullied at boarding school for having a flat chest, the nude scene was liberating in more ways than one. In 1968, Birkin divorced Barry, the father of her daughter Kate, and auditioned for a French film called . Despite not speaking a word of French, Birkin won a lead role alongside the provocative music, she wore a sheer mesh mini dress. “I didn’t realise it was so transparent,” Birkin admitted many years later. “If I had known, I wouldn’t have put knickers on.”
