What does it take to be a muse?  Well, great genes, for one thing, and what better example of this than Jane Birkin and her daughter Charlotte Gainsbourg?  Singer-actress Birkin was the face of 1960s bohemian Paris, posing provocatively-but-chicly on camera and dating music icon Serge Gainsbourg.  Her most enduring fame, though, comes from the bag - you might have heard of it - that Hermes named after her. 

Charlotte, meanwhile, does her muse duty not for Hermes but for Balenciaga, accompanying Nicolas Ghesquiere on every imaginable red carpet and trying out daring looks that most women would shy away from.  The second-generation singer-actress (her sister Lou Doillon is an actress and fashion plate too) most recently appeared on the cover of Vogue Paris wearing Ghesquiere’s textured, armorlike bell suit - and she pulled the bizarre look off fabulously.  Though Charlotte’s style is more shape-oriented and structured than her famous mother’s, one aspect of Birkin’s look remains with her: those dark, shaggy, fringed tresses.

Exercise some of Janes’s insouciant charm in these high-waisted jeans by J Brand.

 A lariat tote by Balenciaga will help you capture some of Charlotte’s je ne sais quoi.