Jane Birkin at Home: See the British-French Icon’s Fashionable Dwellings in 10 Photos

Jane Birkin was the inspiration behind Hermès’ Birkin bag.Photo: Jean-Louis Atlan/Sygma via Getty Images

London-born actor, singer, and model Jane Birkin arrived in Paris in 1967 and summarily became the prototype for French girl style. Birkin’s effortlessly chic ensembles cemented her as a sartorial icon, and the luxury bag that bears her name is, fittingly, one of the most lusted-after accessories in the fashion world: the ever-elusive Birkin, by Hermès. The height of her popularity came during her 12-year relationship with French provocateur Serge Gainsbourg. Their coupling skyrocketed them both into the pop-culture stratosphere, beginning with their scandalous 1969 hit song “Je T’aime... Moi Non Plus.” Despite leaving Gainsbourg in 1980, she continued to collaborate on music with him until his death.

Birkin’s signature unfussy aesthetic translated well to her living environments, which featured a jumbled array of objects of all kinds, layered by years of flea market finds and vintage store visits. From the famously cluttered house on rue de Verneuil where she lived with Gainsbourg to the spaces she later made for herself and her daughters, the model’s interiors reflected a life that was equal parts glamorous, chaotic, and deeply personal. Read on for a look inside the eccentric spaces she called home.

Birkin and Gainsbourg at home in 1969.

Photo: Reg Lancaster/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images/Stringer

Living in a “Gothic manor”

“The understanding between Gainsbourg and Birkin was that she was moving into his home. He had lived there first, and this was his highly personalized domain—the house of a single man,” Marisa Meltzer writes in It Girl, her 2025 biography on Birkin. Gainsbourg bought the former two-level carriage house on 5 bis rue de Verneuil in Paris’s seventh arrondissement right before meeting Birkin, and, with the help of British interior designer André Higgins, proceeded to turn it into what one outlet called a “Gothic manor.” Reportedly inspired by the 19th-century Joris-Karl Huysmans novel À rebours, Gainsbourg added Venetian checkerboard tiles to the ground floor, a black chintz-covered Axminster carpet throughout the rest of the house, and covered the walls in black felt. The couple embrace on a leather armchair somewhere in the home in this 1969 snap.

Gainsbourg and Birkin pictured in their rue de Verneuil home.

Photo: Alain Dejean/Sygma via Getty Images

Dark decor and a mermaid bench

Birkin held court in her own chamber at Gainsbourg’s town house—the only room of the dwelling where she was allowed any decorative freedom. Their separate bedrooms seemed logical; Gainsbourg had his own particular style and was not interested in changing it for anyone, even for Birkin. “The bedroom looked like that of a bachelor, the kind of place where nothing wholesome had ever happened. The windows: covered in blackout curtains. The walls: black. The bed: gigantic. The coverlet: made of black mink. At the foot of the bed was a bench in the shape of a mermaid,” writes Meltzer of Gainsbourg’s bedroom. This 1970 photo shows Birkin sitting at the edge of Gainsbourg’s bed as the music producer smokes next to her on the mermaid bench.

Birkin reportedly didn’t have free reign over the home’s design, as Gainsbourg had very particular decorative tastes.

Photo: Michel LAURENT/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

“‘Clutter’ was a generous way to put it”

Birkin was not granted permission to rearrange any of Gainsbourg’s decor. Most of the rooms were filled with various ephemera Gainsbourg collected over time—among them, ashtrays from various hotels, toy monkeys, police badges, and giant sexually suggestive posters and photographs of former flames, including Brigitte Bardot. “Inside was claustrophobic. ‘Clutter’ was a generous way to put it,” writes Meltzer.

Birkin and her baby daughter, Charlotte, who is an actor.

Photo: Leonard Burt/Central Press/Getty Images

Cheyne Row red

In contrast to Gainsbourg’s cluttered personal shrine, Birkin’s early interiors appear surprisingly traditional. Pictured here in 1971 at her home on Cheyne Row in Chelsea, London, Birkin sits on her bed with her newborn daughter, Charlotte. The house came to Birkin through her ex-husband, composer John Barry. He purchased the remainder of a 10-year lease for her before their divorce, allowing the model to spend a few London Christmases there with Gainsbourg and their children. While not immediately apparent in this black-and-white snap, the bedroom was enveloped in deep red—from the canopied bed to the painted walls, headboard, and frame. Elsewhere, the home blended classical architectural details with the bohemian furnishings and textiles that became hallmarks of Birkin’s style.

Birkin was born in Marylebone, London.

Photo: Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix/Mirrorpix via Getty Images

The very French Brit

There is a bit of irony in the fact that the very British Jane Birkin became the archetype for French girl style. The model was born in London’s tony Marylebone neighborhood and raised, for the most part, in Chelsea, while spending her school years in Kensington and on the Isle of Wight. Her laidback aesthetic was a departure from the formal, more tailored style worn by French girls her age. After Birkin’s popularity exploded in 1969, the effortlessness of her hairstyle and her affinity for men’s shirts and flared jeans made the casual-chic look a touchstone of modern French style. This 1971 image shows Birkin in her Chelsea home, performing the very British ritual of tea time, albeit in her own bohemian way.

Birkin had three daughters.

Photo: Alain Dejean/Sygma via Getty Images

A “laissez-faire” parenting style

As parents, Birkin and Gainsbourg were pretty unconventional. They toted their kids everywhere, including to casinos and nightclubs. According to Meltzer, both wanted to be hands-on parents while still enjoying a rich social life. On many occasions, if they chose not to bring their girls along, they’d head to the clubs and be back just in time to take them to school. “We weren’t the Kennedys!… The twenty-year age gap, our lifestyle… Serge used to say: ‘We are not an immoral couple, we are an amoral couple,’” Birkin once said. In this 1972 image, the proud mom looks on as Kate (her child with ex-husband Barry) feeds her baby sister Charlotte Gainsbourg, the daughter Birkin shared with Serge.

Gainsbourg and Birkin collaborated on both music and films.

Photo: Alain Dejean/Sygma via Getty Images

“A studio, a museum, a salon, or a brothel”

Naturally, the primary function of the crowded town home on rue de Verneuil was housing Gainsbourg and Birkin’s little family, but the space was also filled with recording equipment and musical instruments, including two pianos. Gainsbourg once said during a television interview: “I don’t know if it’s a studio, a museum, a salon, or a brothel.”

Birkin and Gainsbourg pictured with Nana the bull terrier.

Photo: Alain Dejean/Sygma via Getty Images

Nana

This 1972 image shows Birkin and Gainsbourg cuddling the composer’s English bull terrier, Nana, a birthday present the actor gifted to her partner. Gainsbourg adored the pup, who often found her way onto photo shoots and television programs with her owners. Nana was even featured in the 1975 film Sérieux comme le plaisir, in which Birkin and Serge starred, as well as Gainsbourg’s directorial debut, Je t’aime moi non plus (the 1976 movie).

Birkin was known for her casual-chic fashion sense and eclectic decorative aesthetic.

Derek Hudson/Getty Images

The bourgeois student aesthetic

Birkin split from Gainsbourg in 1980. In 2001, when this photo was taken, she was living on rue Jacob in Paris’s sixth arrondissement. Her style clearly evolved in her years with the filmmaker; the open shelving, low-hanging chandelier, and overall propensity for collecting reflect the decorative style Birkin had grown accustomed to while living with Gainsbourg. “I’m incapable of throwing things away,” the singer once told a journalist, who compared her style to that of an aristocratic ’40s- or ’50s-era student at the University of Oxford. In this image, cameras catch the actor while preparing to host a dinner party.

Birkin pictured in 2001 with her bulldog, Dora.

Photo: Derek Hudson/Getty Images

Bohemian life

To curate her second floor apartment on rue Jacob, Birkin lined the rooms with wallpaper, sourced furniture and fabrics from flea markets, and scattered pictures and newspaper clippings of herself and her daughters wherever she could. In this 2001 photo, the icon relaxes on a vintage sofa draped with an Oriental woven carpet; Dora, her British bulldog, sits next to her. Birkin’s final home was an apartment deeper in the sixth arrondissement near the Luxembourg Gardens and the Église Saint-Sulpice. She died at home in July 2023 at age 76.