The world is divided into two groups of people, and it’s all about one keyword: Jane. You might be thinking, nonsense, how can a girl’s name split the world into two factions? Well, it’s quite easy to understand. When you ask people what pops up in their minds when they hear the name “Jane”, they will either answer with a loud «Ah-oooooooh! Tarzan and Jane, of course!», or they will smile, their mind off to the 1970s, and they will say: «It makes me think of the legendary style-icon Jane Birkin».
If you are part of the second group of people, and therefore a fashion girl in the know (or if you changed your mind when you read the second answer), you will surely have noticed that Jane Birkin — or her favorite accessory, the basket bag, at least — is back in the game this spring. It even became the top trending accessory in 2017, with a rising curve of over 200% in Pinterest searches! This officially confirms that the micro-trend we noticed on the streets earlier this year is becoming huge: straw handbags are getting fashionable! But careful, there, we’re not talking about just any wicker woven piece: we are talking about the famous Jane Birkin basket bag that was as inseparable from her as Chanel was from tweed, like Gigi and Kendall, like chocolate and a guilty conscience.
The truth is, she did not only look amazing back in the day, holding her basket bag with high rise jeans and a white tee. Her basket bag actually inspired Jean-Louis Damas, former head of Hermès, to create one of the label’s biggest It-Bags, too: Hermès’s Birkin bag. Curious to know more about this story? The two met on a flight, and when Damas asked Jane why she was carrying a basket, she told him that as a young, fashionable mom, she couldn’t find any leather bag that was practical and chic at the same time. Damas started sketching his first design of the bag on a napkin right away, and three years later, the legendary Hermès Birkin Bag was born.
Heartwarming story, right? And one more reason for us to embrace the comeback of Jane’s basket bag. Since finding the original bag is not the easiest thing to do, we sat down and put some effort into a little research, to find the most authentic-looking version. And we are – as Jane Birkin would be – quite satisfied with what we found!
