Canvas editorial: Sarah Daniell on Jane Birkin, New Zealand photographer Frank Habicht and true cultural legends

Lost in a dream. Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg. Photo / Frank Habicht

“Can you make me look like her?” My friend Rachel, who is an artist, hairdresser and a style icon herself, would cut my hair in her garage when she lived in Avondale, in Tāmaki. Now she lives in Oāmaru and I can’t ask that of her anymore.

It was a running gag. I’d show up every three months for a cut and colour, with a shot on my phone of Jane Birkin, dressed in black leather, astride a motorbike in Paris. “Can you?”

Birkin, the French-Anglo actor, singer and fashion inspiration who died last week, was captured by Aotearoa photographer Frank Habicht in 1969 in Oxford, England. He is the father of the singular film maker Florian Habicht, who made James & Isey — a celebration of whānau and aroha. We feature the photograph and an interview by Florian, with Frank, in this issue.

The thing about so-called icons or legends is that, unlike the cliche descriptors themselves, they are by definition radical. Rare. They are unconventional; they lead. They rarely align with brands — though in the case of Birkin, she inspired Hermes. Decades later, the Birkin bag is still a classic.

The power to simply be yourself and stand out may, in a sense, be determined by the times in which you live. You could argue in this transactional era that there are no new ideas, when fickle trends and “influencers” are leading the charge. But it’s up to us to be open to and informed by the shock of the new, the unheard of; to be charged by things that aren’t necessarily sanctioned by society and recycled in the mainstream, because the algorithms say it’s not what we want or should want. Because discovery — of ideas and people — is where the riches lie.

This week, we celebrate the achievements of Māori whose expertise, dedication and mahi have a profound and tangible impact on society as a whole. The portraits, by Onewhero, Port Waikato photographer Damien Nikora (Ngāti Kahungunu), are tino ataahua. In the media, we walk a fine line between our love affair with populism and revealing the little known.

It is, at times, an act of faith to go into the latter territory. But to slavishly follow that which has already been endorsed, is like sleepwalking to a sugar hit which is quickly digested, and just as quickly forgotten. Such is the enduring power of a bold leader; a cultural force — the truth and meaning of their story lasts far beyond our headlines, our own very existence, and will never get old.