The freestyle of Brigitte Bardot, the woman who invented herself
Even in clothing, the actress has embodied the most disruptive Frenchness, interpreting a revolutionary historical moment without ever tying herself to any brand or designer. And like the classics she returns periodically, just think of Claudia Schiffer 'bardottizzata' in the 1990s
Long before the Parisian chic, of the somewhat fake but very appealing manuals imbued with the rhetoric of doing as, in advance of a formulaic idea of style as a plan studied at the desk and therefore reproducible on anyone, Brigitte Bardot, who has just passed away, epitomised the freest and most disruptive Frenchness, femininity that creates itself, in spite of the film that launched her, in which it is God who creates the female.
From bare feet to skirts cinched at the waist, from sailor-striped T-shirts to capri trousers with flats, from shirts knotted under the bust to wild hair to hippie trinkets, the marks she left, imitated everywhere in a historical moment of great turmoil and radical rewriting of the role of women in society, and of their representation, are enduring. They have spanned generations, becoming to all intents and purposes classics.
BB invented a style, and whether this then became fashionable is another matter. She never overtly associated herself with any créateur, but developed her own personal recipe with infinite spontaneity, starting with very simple elements, but tying it all together with her sulky verve and seductively challenging manner. The BB style has set and continues to set the standard. Like the true classics, it returns periodically - just think of Claudia Schiffer bodied in the nineties by the magical couple Ellen Von Unwerth-Carlyne Cerf - but the energy of the personality in it disappears with her.
