Snapshot: Jane Birkin and Chipping Norton

For Christmas my friend Laura gave me the book “Jane and Serge, A Family Album.” It was the perfect present for me – I love books, I love old photographs, and above all, I LOVE Jane Birkin. You probably do too. Jane has become everybody’s favourite style icon from the past. Her beauty, her effortless style, her dual roles of musician’s wife and mom of three girls all have left a huge impact on future generations. Despite my excitement for the book, I would never have anticipated the thrill of finding this image. Serge and Jane were on a road trip around Oxfordshire and took this photo in Woodstock. I froze when I saw the shout-out to Chipping Norton, my local town. “Chippy,” as we call it, is just your average market town – it’s where you go to the bank, the dry cleaner, and the hardware store. But the surrounding countryside is exceptionally beautiful and within commuter distance of London, and therefore the area has become a popular place to live. Despite the trendy pubs and glamorous residents, Chippy remains the “so uncool it’s cool” town it’s always been, but now that I have this picture of Jane Birkin and Chipping Norton in the same frame it might just be cool in it’s own right.