Last year, Jane Birkin’s namesake Birkin bag sold at auction for a cool $9.9million, a sum that speaks to the extraordinary cachet the style icon bestowed on an otherwise practical, lovingly overstuffed leather tote. But while her style remains endlessly influential, most of Birkin’s make-up-averse acolytes are more likely to be multi-hyphenate creatives than, say, investment bankers with seven figures to spare. A Birkin bag of our own therefore remains a distant fantasy (unless, of course, you happen to have a covert arrangement with the sales team at Hermès). Thankfully, for the aesthetically rich and cash-poor, there’s now a far cheaper way to dress like the world’s most enviably fringed Francophile: the Jane Birkin Dress.
Vogue’s Favorite Birkin-Esque Dresses
Essentially an elevated shift dress with cropped sleeves, the Jane Birkin Dress evokes blissful days on the Riviera, even if the closest you’re getting to a Euro summer is an off-brand Fanta Lemon from the corner shop. Search for one online, though, and you’ll quickly find yourself buried beneath the kind of figure-hugging bodycon creations best left in a New Look changing room circa 2012, rather than the breezy, insouciant staple Birkin made her own. (I should know, having spent many an hour trawling Vinted for variations of “mini dress long-sleeve black”.)
Jane Birkin in 1969.
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