Third Wave Fashion

Fashion Icon Friday: Jane Birkin

What girl doesn’t wish that the ever-coveted Hermès Birkin Bag was named after them? Alas, our fashion icon this week is Jane Birkin.

The English singer and actress came onto the Swinging London scene in the 1960s. She appeared in films like the 1968 Wonderwall and Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile. She was even in Don Juan, Or If Don Juan Were a Woman with our other fashion icon, Brigitte Bardot. Both were stylish sex symbols of that era.

As a singer, her infamous song is “Je T’Aime…Moi Non Plus” (“I Love You… Nor Do I”), a duet with Serge Gainsbourg, the French singer, songwriter, actor, director, and composer. Jane and Serge collaborated numerous times, and also had a 13-year long romantic relationship together after her marriage to composer John Barry ended.

So how did the lusted-over Birkin bag come to be named after Jane Birkin herself? Rumor has it the Hermès chief executive Jean-Louis Dumas was seated next to Jane on a Paris-to-London flight in 1984. She was traveling with a straw purse and when she put it in the overhead compartment, everything fell out. She explained to him that she couldn’t find a leather weekend bag that she liked—clearly it was fate! Shortly after, he created the now classic and exclusive leather Birkin bag for her.

Jane still does some acting and singing as well as working closely with Amnesty International and efforts to bring AIDS awareness—and yes, still carries a Birkin bag.

Tech Crush Thursday: Natalie Massenet 

We can’t get enough of Natalie Massenet because she also shares a love of fashion + technology.

Natalie is the woman behind the luxury website, Net-a-Porter. She grew up living between LA and Paris, at the age of 27, she started her career in fashion as an editor at Women’s Wear Daily. Later she was Isabella Blow’s assistant at Tatler. In 1998, she left the editorial world to start the lust-worthy website, Net-a-Porter. Natalie was able to start the site with the assistance of her husband at the time, Arnaud, an investment banker who helped her raise 1.2 million pounds in funding.

The site launched with a team of 15 based out of a loft in London, surrounded by the infamous Net-a-Porter boxes. While some did not think the site would be successful, she proved them wrong, eventually selling her shares of the company for over 50 million pounds. Natalie remains the executive chairman (chairwoman?) of the site and in 2010 launched the menswear version, Mr. Porter. Later, Natalie went on to start the popular website, The Outnet.  

In Vogue, Natalie discussed coming up with the idea for a luxury goods website: “I couldn’t believe you could be sitting in your apartment in London and be clicking on a Victorian jacket in Wisconsin, and that someone in Wisconsin could send it to you!”

Sigh; we love her.