Inside The World Of Agnès B: The Woman Who Taught Paris How To Dress

Agnès B created our modern understanding of the much emulated ‘French girl style’.

Bretons, cigarette pants, the perfect straight-leg jeans, fitted cardigans, a great white shirt and feminine floaty dresses worn with loafers or a lace-up Derby; she did them first. Agnès B walked so Sezane, APC, Maje, Soeur, Sandro and Rouje could run. It was she who originally recontextualised utilitarian workwear through a style prism; the painter overalls, mechanic jumpsuits and tradesmen dungarees that are now everywhere started their fashion life in her studio. Her rock ’n’ roll inflected Parisian cool won fans in some of history’s greatest cultural icons, from David Bowie and Patti Smith to Jane Birkin and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Over 50 years later, and now in her mid-80s, her business is still family-owned with 242 stores globally.

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Agnès B 2025 photographed by Marion Berrin

“I don’t do fashion,” she tells me from her studio in Paris’ 10th arrondissement. “That’s the first thing you must know. I do good cuts, and good materials; simple, easy clothes. You know, it’s not fashion, so it stays good for a long time.” She looks down at her black leather jacket. “I have had this for 30 years,” she says. “Fashion is ephemeral and style is forever.”

The origins of her label are a little different to most designers, who usually dream of working in fashion and go on to train at fashion college before launching their own business or working at a brand. Agnès B (the B comes from her ex-husband’s surname Bourgois) was raised by a middle-class family in the Parisian suburb of Versailles. Her mother had clothes designed for her, and it was this she thinks that might have given her the creative impetus to start creating her own clothes, which she began doing, aged 13. When she was 17, she got married (“I was much too young”) to the publisher Christian Bourgois, who she has previously said was a “great publisher, but obsessed with sex.” Around her 19th birthday, she gave birth to twins. At 20, she left her husband and found herself close to destitute with two babies in tow. “I had to find a way to earn a living,” she says. “I was very, very poor. I didn’t eat much.”

Times were hard, but the designer (she prefers to call herself a stylist, a less grandiose title in her opinion), found herself living in the heart of Paris’ May 1968 civil uprising. She joined the protests with her young twins, sometimes even bringing injured activists to local hospitals. “My parents asked, ‘what are you doing?’ I trusted my instincts. I knew I had to find a way to eat though.”

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Agnès B by Philippe Leroy

Her ex paid her rent, but everything else was left to her. She sold her clothes, wedding dress, engagement ring and furniture to make ends meet, and eventually found her lucky break through an Elle fashion editor, who loved the breezy, bohemian way Agnès dressed, and so gave her a job as a stylist on the magazine. She went onto have three other children – one with a boyfriend and two others with her lover. Before long, inspired by art and cinema that was thriving in Paris in the late 60s, she decided to go back to her childhood love of designing. In 1975, she opened her first shop in an old butchers in Les Halles, which also served as her workshop and a creative hub. Free-flying birds would roam the room, and artists would stage performances there. In 1979, she created the snap cardigan – her most famous design – a relaxed piece with popper buttons that has been a best-seller ever since. It’s a versatile piece that feels as fresh today as it did when it was first launched. “I design because I love people and I love making people happy,” she shrugs. “You have to love people to make clothes.”

Artists were drawn to her and she to them, and in 1980, she opened her first store in New York where she first came across Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat. “Andy bought Jean-Michel a white shirt, which is how he found me, and from then on he only wore my shirts,” she says. “The first time I met him, he was supposed to be going to a dinner held in his honour, but instead he stayed with me just talking for two hours. It’s a funny story, that night he called me at 3am calling for me to visit him at the Ritz Hotel, but I said no – I had a new lover. Jean-Michel was a very cultured man; his father taught him a lot about Greek art. He was a street poet.”

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Agnès, far left, and her family and friends at her original Paris store, 1976

Her association with the art world began even earlier, when Picasso kissed her aged 17 at a chance meeting in Paris. “I was soon to be married, and he told me I was beautiful and kissed me.” Agnès B is full of stories like this which she delivers with the same nonchalance you might use for talking about your weekly food shop. She talks about her friendship with the late Bowie, which began after she gave him some style advice. “When I first met him, he was wearing brown suits with too many pleats. It was his Berlin moment you know,” she says. “I told him, ‘you should stick to rock and roll style’, and gave him a pair of leather jeans. He went to London to buy an extra two pairs from my store. Later, I dressed him for many more occasions, including his 50th birthday. It is an honour to dress people you admire.”

In 2022, the designer opened La Fab in Paris, a gallery showcasing art from her vast 5,000-strong collection. Art is still hugely important to her and she recently teamed up with Le Louvre on a collection. She adores graffiti, and tells me she has her own tag. “Graffiti is always movement from the heart,” she says, “it is political and honest; graffiti has something to say. I take pictures of it wherever I am, Japan, London, Paris or New York. It is so expressive.”

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Five decades later, and Agnès B has never advertised, choosing to run her label on her own terms. “I don’t know what other fashion designers do,” she shrugs. “I only wear my own clothes, I never buy them from anyone else’s shop. It was the press who made me. From when I began, editors have taken pictures of my clothes for magazines, and write articles like yours. They think, perhaps, there is something interesting happening at Agnès B.”