It’s the dog days of August, and the fashion and culture worlds have pretty much closed shop. So I thought I’d take this time to talk about someone I knew and liked very much: Jane Birkin, the British-born French actress and singer, who died at home in Paris last month at the age of 76.
I first became aware of Jane back when I was an 18-year-old Elite model in Paris in the early 1980s. (More about that chapter of my life another time.) On my second day in Paris, I was sent on a go-see at the classic French fashion magazine Jardin des Modes. They were looking for look-a-likes of French movie stars—Catherine Deneuve, Brigitte Bardot, Isabella Adjani. As the editor paged through my book and looked at me, she nodded. “Yes,” she said to the photographer. “She does resemble a young Jane Birkin”—or rather, “Beer-keen.”
“Who?” I thought to myself.
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