Style Icons: Brigitte Bardot

In the early1950s nice girls didn’t wear two-piece swimsuits, but after Bardot hit Cannes, the fashion was suddenly less Esther Williams one-piece and more about midriff revealing, just as French girls would do.

Bardot embodied the spirit of the French Riviera; she was naive but sexy with a liberated attitude to flaunting her body. She was the male fantasy of the French girl they could dream of meeting in Paris. Women copied her hair pied high, her kohl-rimmed eyes, gingham dresses and Capri pants. Her natural hair was chestnut but she dyed it sunkissed blonde. Her hairstyle, known as ‘chignon-bordel’ and ‘Choucroute’, was big, soft and tousled, as if she had just emerged from beneath the sheets.

Bardot’s sexually free but innocent persona carved out a new type of female, the 'sex kitten’. With big eyes, a cute nose and bee-stung lips, she had doll looks and youthful naivety. The press called her “the princess of pout, the countess of come hither.”

In the late 1950s and 1960s she was one of the most photographed women in the world, and it wasn’t just the bikini that she revolutionised. St Tropez was just a small fishing enclave when Bardot rocked up in her bikini, and her influence transformed it into the playground of the rich and famous and the beachwear capital of the world.

Once the sunkissed nymph, Bardot in later years became a fervent animal rights activist and right wing supporter. Her homophobic and Islamaphobic rants over the years tarred the iconic, romanticised notion of French beach babe.

The expression, “you should never touch your idols as the gold often comes off in your hands,” springs to mind.

Her face, now naturally aged and lined, is held up as an example of what happens when you spend too much time in the sun, but isn’t it better to age gracefully than inject each wrinkle and stretch out the skin like a taut piece of canvas?

Born Camille Javel in September 1934 to a wealthy Parisian family, at 15 she was discovered by Elle magazine, which splashed her on the front cover as part of a youth special. This led her to being spotted by young writer and photographer Roger Vadim, who tracked her down and her two months before her 18th birthday.

Vadim, who made a habit of marrying young blondes, (future wives would be Catherine Deneuve and Jane Fonda) said she was “as beautiful as death, as seductive as sin and as cold as virtue.” Bardot was his muse, his ideal of feminine beauty, andhe pushed her career as an actress, casting her in Manina, La Fille Sans Voile and then in And God Created Woman. She was dancing barefoot, dressed in peasant skirts and with a shirt tied around the waist, and rolled in the surf naked or in a bikini. 

By the mid 1950s designers were targeting younger women with ready to wear lines, and Bardot’s free and natural look was easily copied.

Her style was one that liberated women from the bourgeois confines of structured clothing such as Dior’s expensive New Look gowns, with their full skirts and corseted waists.  She fashioned simple, cheap clothing, worn with little jewellery and no gloves, choosing breezy cotton over heavy silk.

She was the symbol of a new youth movement, transcending social class divisions – although ironically you had to have a perfectly slim body, free time and a tan to wear it well, which was the privilege of the rich. 

Bardot’s style was perfect for the sun, sex and surf of St Tropez. She wore wide skirts and petticoats, or tight pencil skirts with a cardigan belted at the waist. She was the female rebel to James Dean and Marlon Brando, wearing denim jeans made popular by rebellious teenagers and Beat generation style duffle coats with striped tops, polo shirts and ballet flats. 

For her second marriage to Jacques Charrier in 1959, she wore a pink gingham dress with a Broderie Anglaise trim, single-handedly reviving both these French country fabrics into sought after couture.

Bardot grew sick of being considered just the girl in the bikini and in the late 1960s she teamed up with Serge Gainsbourg to experiment with music. They released Je T’aime Moi Non Plus, Harley Davidson and Bonnie and Clyde, where she dressed up in Faye Dunaway’s style from the 1967 film, in a beret and midi skirt.

In 1973 she retired from film after 21 years in the business, and 48 films, but is still imitated heavily, from Claudia Schiffer in the 1990s to Kate Moss, Kylie Minogue and of course, the Barbie doll.

Get the look

The Bardot look is perfect for the summer - carefree sexy and simple. Here are the basic elements you need:

A white cotton or lace dress

A navy and white striped top, can be worn with jeans or a pencil skirt and ballet flats. 

A gingham bikini, and of course, the hair, long, loose and messed up.