1960s Fashion: New Wave actress Anna Karina’s French style
Photograph by Jean-Claude Sauer/Paris Match through Getty Illustrations or photos, © AGIP/RDA/Everett Collection and image by Philippe Le Tellier/Paris Match via Getty Visuals
More than just a French movie star, Anna Karina is the unquestionable experience of the French New Wave motion. After assembly director and partner-to-be Jean-Luc Godard in 1960, the Danish-French actress went on to star in seven of the director’s most iconic flicks. Regardless of whether she’s playing a schoolgirl-turned-burglar (Bande à component), a girl-on-the-lam (Pierrot le fou) or an aspiring actress (Vivre sa vie), Anna and her inimitable presence — both susceptible and free of charge-spirited — is the beating heart of just about every Godard collaboration. The duo’s movies shaped both equally French New Wave and French culture, as a whole — and the exact same could be claimed about Anna’s fashion decisions. Taking in plaid skirts, trench coats, headbands and hair ribbons, ballet flats, catty eyeliner, and great sweaters, Anna’s 60s type (in all its gamine glory) set the conventional for Nouvelle Obscure dressing and proceeds to be the blueprint for today’s French girl chic. Below, we appear back on the French movie star’s vocation by way of a variety of her most iconic outfits.
An early picture session, circa 1960
At age 17, Anna Karina (née Hanne Karin Bayer) hitchhiked from her native Denmark to Paris with only 10,000 francs in her pocket. Quickly following going, Anna was scouted by an advert company and began modelling. Throughout her early-vocation stint as a product, Anna included Elle Magazine, achieved Coco Chanel (who, Anna recounts, came up with the actresses’ iconic stage title), and appeared in commercials for Coca Cola and Palmolive. In this article, throughout a single of her 1st photo classes as an actress, Anna poses at a Paris monument carrying a pencil skirt, t-bar flats, and a cardigan in just one of her favorite colours: purple. One 12 months afterwards, Anna wore this cardigan on-screen, although filming Jean-Luc Godard’s comedy Une femme est une femme.

Picture by Jean-Claude Sauer/Paris Match by means of Getty Illustrations or photos
At her marriage to director Jean-Luc Godard, 1961
Both artist-and-muse and spouse-and-spouse, Anna and Godard were the pair that described French New Wave cinema. Right after seeing Anna in an ad for Palmolive soap in 1960, the director solid the actress as the lead in his 2nd movie, Le petit soldat. The few fell in enjoy through the film’s output: in 2016, Anna recounted to W Magazine that the director slipped her a love observe all through a dinner party, asking her to go away her then-boyfriend and meet him at a Genevan café. She did. The pair received married in Paris a calendar year afterwards. To the ceremony, Anna wore a very long sleeved, tea-duration costume, entire with a shorter veil and a massive flower on the crown of her head. Quite 60s and quite Anna.
With Jean-Luc Godard, circa 1960
Right after having the lead role in Godard’s Le petit soldat in 1960, Anna went on to star in 6 of the director’s most iconic movies over the system of 6 years. From avant-garde heist movie Bande à element to the surreal and colourful Pierrot le fou, Anna and Godard’s films have still left a long lasting effect on French cinema as a whole. Listed here, shelling out time with her partner on established, Anna wears her signature ensemble: crewneck sweater, plaid skirt, tights and kitten heels. Anna’s also worn this actual outfit across a variety of Godard’s motion pictures, including Bande à component (remember the iconic dance range?) and their to start with movie, Le petit soldat.
In Vivre Sa Vie, 1962
From a corseted sailor’s costume to a nun’s routine, Anna pulled some unforgettable on-screen looks throughout her career. Her most iconic cinematic seem, on the other hand, belongs to 1962 Godard basic Vivre sa vie. In this tragic character study, Anna plays Nana, an aspiring actress whose hopes are slowly but surely crushed around a series of 12 tableaux. The movie is commonly regarded 1 of the masterpieces of the French New Wave movement. And Nana’s search is equally important. The character’s unmistakable black bob, white shirt and black cardigan,
worn in this article through the film’s dance range, have come to be emblematic not only of Godard’s oeuvre but of the cinematic movement as a whole.
At Cannes Film Competition, 1962
When in Cannes! After breaking into the French film field in 1960, Anna — alongside Godard — turned a staple at the country’s illustrious Cannes Movie Competition. To the event’s 1962 edition, the actress wore a breezy broderie anglaise shirt with her signature plaid skirt. Right here, she tops the seem with a straw boater hat to defeat the Riviera warmth, obviously. Elsewhere at Cannes, Anna’s donned pigtails (very similar to these she wore in Bande a Part and Une femme est une femme) crochet and even additional straw hats.

At household in Paris, 1963
Alongside her love for plaid skirts and boater hats, Anna also experienced a predilection for cute fur-trimmed coats, worn in this article, at house in Paris. In point, Anna’s choice for furry outerwear motivated her on-display screen costumes all through the 60s. The two her figures from Godard’s Vivre sa vie and Une femme est une femme donned related fur-collared coats. And, even past her collaborations with Godard, the actress wore a furry wrap jacket on-set of Claude de Givray’s Un mari à prix fixe.

Image by Jack Garofalo/Paris Match through Getty Visuals
Portray at household, 1964
Further than the silver screen, Anna also pursued a job in tunes. In 1967, the actress recorded a sequence of music to accompany musical-comedy movie Anna with French audio market heavyweight Serge Gainsbourg. The film’s single “Sous le soleil exactement”, written by Serge, grew to become a massive hit in France. Right here, at her dwelling in Paris, Anna dabbles in painting, as well, putting on an oversized red sweater, denims, black ballet flats and a felted boater hat. A quintessentially française outfit for one of the most legendary French stars.