Kylie Jenner and Travis Scott’s GQ Photoshoot Mimics Young Jane Birkin
Image by Diet Prada
Kylie Jenner and Travis Scott broke the internet yesterday with their cover photo for GQ Magazine’s July issue. Amidst the rabid quenching of the collective celebrity news-thirst, you may have missed the secrets hidden in their photoshoot. The image of Jenner and her baby-daddy (lingua franca for “father of her child) is an homage to style queen Jane Birkin and her lover, Jewish musician Serge Gainsbourg.
The sultry Norma Kamali bodysuit Jenner donned in the photoshoot is a tribute to style mogul Jane Birkin. The actress-singer and her long time lover, French pop singer Serge Gainsbourg, shot a nearly-identical iconic power photo in the early 70’s. As it turns out, the young couple’s entire photoshoot paid tribute to the duo’s romantic partnership. The Media account DietPrada, compared all the matching looks below, for your nostalgic pleasure.
The cover photo, photographed by Paola Kudacki, shows Jenner straddling Scott in a black bodysuit while he dons a pinstriped suit and what appears to be a cold hard stare. That same shot was taken of Birkin and Gainsbourg by Helmut Newton in 1978. The only visible difference between the two photos are Jenner’s scar on her lower leg and Gainsbourg’s dangling cigarette.
Another photo from the shoot captures the 20-year-old cosmetic guru in a white mini dress and school girl-esque thigh-high socks, while the powerhouse rapper wears the same pinstripe suit. In a parallel portrait taken by Terry O’Neil in 1969, Birkin sports the same outfit as Jenner, while Gainsbourg longingly grabs her thigh.
In the third shot, we see the vestiges of 70’s style come to life as both Birkin and Jenner let their hair loose, sporting similar fringed party dresses.
Jenner and Scott’s photoshoot, of course, pales in comparison to recent news of 20-year-old Kylie Jenner’s youngest self-made billionaire status. At her age, I wasn’t on the prowl for my next million, I was just trying to wake up to my alarm in time for my unpaid internship. But anyway.
If Serge Gainsbourg, a Jewish son of Ukrainian immigrant parents and a survivor of Germany occupied France in World War II, were to see headlines comparing him and Jane’s fame to that of Kylie Jenner and Travis Scott, what would he have to say?
We’d have to talk with the man upstairs to retrieve that comment, but if our hunch is correct, he’d say: je t’aime, but there is no comparison.
Correction, July 18, 5pm: An earlier version of this article stated that Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg were both Jewish. In fact, Birkin was not Jewish.
Bonnie is an intern for the Forward.
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