Jane Birkin

Birkin's off-duty uniform in 1960s and 1970s Paris, a white T-shirt or simple dress, flared jeans and a wicker basket carried everywhere, is still the reference point for effortless French dressing. Photographs of her with Serge Gainsbourg fixed the look, and after she complained to Hermès chief Jean-Louis Dumas on a flight in 1984 that she could not find a practical bag, the house designed the Birkin, now its most famous product.