In 1983 Jane Birkin boarded an AirFrance flight from Paris to London that would indelibly alter the trajectory of fashion history forever, though she nor any of the other passengers had any idea of it.
“I remember it perfectly well! I’d been upgraded by Air France on a flight to London,” Birkin recalled when talking to Vogue in 2012. “And I found myself sitting next to a man [then creative director of Hermès, Jean-Louis Dumas]. I’m not quite sure what type of bag I had with me – my husband Jacques Doillon had reversed his car over my basket [bag], crushed it on purpose not two days before. [Dumas] thought I deserved more.
