On a visit to Serge Gainsbourg’s former home in Paris, the tour stops momentarily before a tiny glass-walled placard. One could barely describe it as a wardrobe, it’s more a cubby, in which the French singer kept his clothes.
The house on 5 bis Rue de Verneuil, in Saint Germain, Paris — long a place of pilgrimage for fans, who daub the walls outside — has recently been reopened alongside an adjacent property as part of the Maison Gainsbourg. Preserved exactly as it was in 1991, the year in which he died, the house is now a mausoleum: the singer’s cigarette stubs are still sitting in the ashtray, the fridge still holds his cans of food. The wardrobe, in particular, makes for very intimate viewing, the floor is lined with pairs of white Repettos and each shoe bears the imprint of his feet.
The total inventory of Gainsbourg’s wardrobe could fit in a small suitcase: five shirts, a few T-shirts, slashed to be worn underneath a blazer so he might look bare-chested, one perfecto biker’s jacket, one peacoat, and 20 pairs of the aforementioned “Zizi” shoes. He picked up his famous pinstripe blazer on a trip to Portobello Road Market, London, and wore it even though the sleeves were fraying, and there were holes along the seams. The gift shop offers a pristine replica, by Saint Laurent, for about €2,000 (it’s a limited edition) along with versions of his denim shirt.
It seems astonishing that anyone who has come to be the sine qua non of stylish dressing could have had so few actual clothes. And, before you all clamour that you can also count the contents of your wardrobe on your digits, let’s reiterate the fact that Serge Gainsbourg is still regarded as a Style Icon. You too may only own a few scuffed pairs of trousers and a handful of cotton shirts, but are you the reference point for dozens of designers? Are you the embodiment of timeless style?
What makes Gainsbourg’s wardrobe so impressive was his absolute commitment to a look: he nailed the silhouette, the textiles, and the basic garments, and he wore them till he wore them out.
Some people seem to have an instinct for what shapes work for them, and how to find the perfect “line”. It helps that Gainsbourg was French, a nation in which sartorial insouciance is learnt at kindergarten, and everyone knows how to tie a scarf. In fact, Gainsbourg’s style evolution didn’t happen overnight: according to the museum’s curator, it was Jane Birkin, his longtime partner, who helped define what came to be his look. It was the English singer and child of the Sixties counterculture who put him in the Zizis, told him to lose the socks, and hemmed (or rather ripped) his jeans.
Gainsbourg serves the mantra that to look good one doesn’t need a lot of clothes, one simply has to choose them well. And while some men might not embrace the dance shoe, every other garment in Gainsbourg’s wardrobe still looks effortlessly modern and stylish to this day. I wasn’t a tremendous fan before visiting Rue de Verneuil, but the experience added another patina of glamour to his legend that has stayed with me ever since.
Style is an infuriating conundrum: people can be stylish, and wear styles that follow fashions, but possessing style is a rare, quixotic gift. Gainsbourg had it. Birkin had it in buckets, she had a magic for elevating even the most quotidian things. I think her style was found in her attention to proportion, so that everything she wore created the perfect silhouette. It could be said also that she was stick-thin and had a face like a Renaissance angel and hence would have looked good in a dustbin bag. Personal style however is simply not something that one can equate with beauty — myriad actors and celebrities of exquisite beauty look mind-bogglingly bad. Real style combines charisma, self-confidence and a soupcon of sex appeal.
By contrast, this week I peered into another wardrobe, that owned by David Beckham. In his new Netflix documentary series, the former footballer offers us a tour of his capacious Cotswolds home. As someone who has embraced fashion since his first pay cheque, Beckham represents the polar extreme of personal style. His wardrobe is as bountiful as Serge Gainsbourg’s is empty. It’s also the most immaculate curation I’ve seen since visiting the Chanel show at the V&A. Swaths of shirts hang alongside knitwear (arranged by colour, in graduated order); another cupboard sways with suits. So obsessed with detail is Beckham that he can detect the faintest disturbance: “Oh, someone’s been in here,” he murmurs at one point while readjusting a hanger as though it were a wiretap being uncovered by the CIA.
While looking fabulous, let’s not get confused here, Beckham’s opulence of clothing belies a man who has not yet perhaps defined his style. Like many people, he adopts a different “costume” depending on the setting: in the country he wears country knits and flat caps, but adopts West Coast-bro T-shirts and athleisure to lounge beside his LA pool.
Perhaps his chameleon-like wardrobe echoes the sense of displacement he has felt since hanging up his football shirt? When the one garment that has defined you for so many decades is no longer your identity, you start to try on different looks for size. It’s a spirit with which I can well identify, and not because I own far too many clothes. It takes an unusual self-assurance to assume the same guise for one’s whole life.
Gainsbourg’s identity was born early — Rabelaisian rascal, singer, sexual conquistador. Ultimately the look outwore him: his death followed years of inebriation and public humiliations in which he did not look good at all. The shirts served him as an icon but they also froze him in a persona that was impossible to sustain. Maybe, the secret to style means making tiny evolutions — in spirit if not in shoes.
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