Designer muse duos: fashion history in the making.

With demands for new collections arising multiple times each year, designers have to look everywhere and anywhere for inspiration. But the most timeless and personal source of inspiration is arguably the muse. A muse is the living embodiment of a designer’s vision and in that way muse, designer and brand are bonded for life. 

The Birkin 

It was the start of the 80s. Jane Birkin and Jean-Louis Dumas, the artistic director of Hermès, boarded the same Air France flight from Paris to London. Jane was flying with her young daughter Charlotte and carrying a wicker basket overflowing with her belongings, the contents of which accidentally fell on Dumas.

The incident led them to a chat about bags and in particular, what Jane was looking for in one. Jane complained about size and told Dumas that what the market had to offer didn’t really meet or fit her busy lifestyle needs. She used a sick bag to sketch what she was after. Little did she know that these days the starting price for the real-life version of her sick bag design retails for around $9k and only seems to be going up in price each year. 

Dumas decided to bring her vision to life and the first model of the bag was gifted to Jane in 1985. Hermès asked her for permission to name this model after her and so the Birkin bag was born. The OG Birkin and Jane would be inseparable for the next 10 years. The pap shot of a smiling Jane carrying her over-packed bag with a sticker of Burmese political leader Aung San Suu Kyi perfectly captures Jane and her relationship with fashion.

Only a true muse can carry a status symbol used to signify wealth on her own terms. It’s Jane’s eternal authenticity that makes her the icon that she is and it’s the reason why the Birkin is Jane’s bag and no one else’s.

Le smoking

YSL and Betty Catroux first met at a Paris nightclub in 1967. Yves sent someone to bring her over to his table. It was the start of a lifelong friendship and collaboration between the designer and muse. Her lean, tall figure and androgynous presence made her his female double and the perfect model for his signature le smoking tuxedo. 

Yves had created the codes of his brand before meeting Betty and making use of menswear to transform women’s fashion was a key feature in his approach to design. Betty had also cultivated a love for men’s clothing and felt most at sync with herself when dressed like a tomboy. 

Betty wore YSL all the time. But it’s her dressed in Yve’s reimagining of the tuxedo as womenswear that perfectly captures what he saw in her and how she represents but also extends his brand.

Yves said that “A woman wearing a suit is anything but masculine… This androgynous woman, on an equal footing with men through her clothes, upends the outdated image of classical femininity” and it’s easy to see how this statement has Betty Catroux written all over it.

Bond

Designer muse relationships will always play a role in shaping fashion history. Muses are more than a source of inspiration, they’re an active participant in the creative process and in bringing a designer’s vision to life. And to prove it, one of the first images that comes to mind when thinking of a Birkin bag is the image of Jane carrying her used, loved black Birkin. Betty posing for the lens of Steven Meisel in her signature smoking tuxedo look will be an iconic YSL reference for the lifespan of the brand. The bond between inspiration and the inspired lives forever.

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