The Denim Story

Model, singer and actress Lou Doillon on her lifelong love-hate relationship with denim

I remember swearing to myself as a little girl that I would never wear jeans. Growing up in the ’80s, everyone was in Levi’s 501s. It was the same cut for men and women, worn with Converse, and I used to think it was the worst combination possible. I feel differently about denim now, of course.

I was born in September 1982, and at that time my mother [actress Jane Birkin], my father [director Jacques Doillon] and three of my sisters – Kate Barry, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Lola Doillon – were all wearing jeans. It was all they ever wore, with a white T-shirt or a denim jacket. I must have believed that jeans were a uniform.

When my mum gave birth to me, she’d run away to a very bourgeois part of Paris, the 16th arrondissement, which is extremely boring. She’d left Serge [Gainsbourg] for my dad so, to hide from the press and madness of it, they bought a house in this horrible area where everyone wore two-piece Chanel suits with dreadful heeled ballet pumps and tights. My mum stood out because she was absolutely androgynous, which today is the norm but, back in the ’80s, it certainly wasn’t. I hated her for it. Jeans were a family trademark, and I wanted to rebel against them.

When I was a teenager, I had dreadlocks and piercings. I used to walk around Paris barefoot, with my flared jeans dragging along the ground, reading William Blake aloud. People were horrified. It was great; at least they weren’t saying,

“Look, it’s Jane Birkin’s daughter.” Most “kids of” are just “kids of”, so I created a kind of look that was the best way of getting out of the “chic” character impressed upon me, which I wasn’t. I was weird and tall and crooked and loud, so I had to own it one way or another.