Jane Birkin poses for photographers on the photograph name for the movie Jane By Charlotte on the 74th worldwide movie pageant, in Cannes, France, in July 2021. The actress-singer died on Sunday.

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Jane Birkin poses for photographers on the photograph name for the movie Jane By Charlotte on the 74th worldwide movie pageant, in Cannes, France, in July 2021. The actress-singer died on Sunday.

Brynn Anderson/AP

Jane Birkin, the British actress, pop singer and namesake of the Hermès Birkin designer purse, died on Sunday. She was 76.

Born in London, Birkin adopted France as her house nation, the place she turned a global star after placing up a musical and romantic partnership with French singer Serge Gainsbourg. Known for her lengthy, eye-skimming bangs and basic wardrobe, Birkin epitomized the easy French-chic type.

The French Ministry of Culture, which confirmed her death, known as her a “timeless Francophone icon.”

“The most French of Britons is gone,” tradition minister Rima Abdul Malak said in a tweet. “Jane B was mischief, impertinent elegance, the never-outdated emblem of an entire era, a murmuring voice that remains our idol.”

Her performing credit embrace a minor position within the 1966 crime rom-com Kaleidoscope and the 1978 adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile.

Birkin was married to James Bond movie rating composer John Barry from 1965 to 1968, with whom she had a daughter, Kate Barry. Kate, a photographer, died in 2013 at age 46 after falling from the window of her fourth-floor flat in Paris.

In 1968, Birkin joined Gainsbourg for the breathy hit “Je T’aime… Moi Non Plus” (“I Love You… Me Neither”). The music was banned from radio play in a number of nations and condemned by the Vatican for its sexual innuendos and heavy respiratory — which solely made its recognition skyrocket.

Birkin and Gainsbourg, who died in 1991, had been collectively for 12 years however remained buddies and collaborators after their cut up.

The Birkin bag, a luxurious “it” bag recognized for its lofty price ticket, was first created in 1984 for the actress by Hermès CEO Jean-Louis Dumas. Just a few years prior, as NPR previously reported, Birkin discovered herself seated subsequent to Dumas on a London-bound flight. The actress, who’d been recognized to tote round a straw basket to carry her necessities, relayed to Dumas her issue find the perfect-sized weekend bag — one larger than the Hermès “Kelly” purse, however smaller than a suitcase. She pulled out the airplane’s “vomit bag” and sketched out her concept to indicate Dumas, she stated in a 2018 interview with CBS News. She joked that she had develop into so synonymous with the famed bag that it will at some point be the spotlight of her obituary.

Birkin, additionally recognized for her activism, asked for her name to be pulled from affiliation with the favored crocodile-skin model of the Birkin bag in 2015 over issues of animal cruelty. Birkin has auctioned off her baggage over time for numerous causes together with earthquake aid. She’s additionally stated she had an arrangement with the designer to donate a portion of Hermès bag gross sales on to charity, even after her demise.

An individual locations flowers on the home the place Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg lived, on Sunday, in Paris.

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The actress died at her house in Paris, in accordance with French media experiences. Birkin suffered a light stroke in 2021, The New York Times reported, and had just lately known as off concert events as a consequence of well being points.

“Because she embodied freedom, because she sang the most beautiful words of our language, Jane Birkin was a French icon,” wrote French President Emmanuel Macron. “A complete artist, her voice was as sweet as her engagements were fiery. She bequeaths us tunes and images that will never leave us.”

“We will never forget her songs, her laughter or her incomparable accent that have always accompanied us,” tweeted Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris.

She is survived by two daughters, one from her relationship with Gainsbourg and one from her relationship with French movie director Jacques Doillon: Singer-actresses Charlotte Gainsbourg and Lou Doillon.

NPR’s Eleanor Beardsley contributed to this story.