MOTHER

Lou Doillon is a French-British model, actress, and musician from Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France.

Born on September 4, 1982, Lou is the daughter of one of the greatest French indie movie directors, Jacques Doillon, and famed actress and muse Jane Birkin, who inspired Hermes'.

Lou is the half-sister of Charlotte Gainsbourg and Kate Barry, from her mother's side, as well as Lola Doillon and Lily Doillon, from her father's side.

"I've always had a strange acting life. I'm the daughter of a very French, typical director who fell in love with every single one of his actresses. And that's also something that's kind of normal in the acting business, because everything is based on desire, one way or the other," said the talented actress.

In 1988, Lou began her acting career by starring in Le petit amour alongside her mother and half-sister Charlotte Gainsbourg.

In July 2002, when Lou was 19-years-old, she gave birth to her son Marlowe Jack Tiger Mitchell, whose father is musician Thomas-John Mitchell. Less than a year later she parted ways with Mitchell and moved to New York.

"I like costumes. I am always dressing up. I'm very English like that," said Lou.

In 1998, Lou landed her first great role with the help of her father in the comedy, Trop peu d’amour. She then went on to star in the drama-romance film Mauvaises Fréquentations in 1999.

"I was kind of ashamed of my bourgeois family as a teenager, I guess. I had dreadlocks, shopped in thrift stores, and pretended I had no money. At that time, I would have spat on a girl who was buying Yves Saint Laurent," said Lou.

"Home has always been wherever I am. I'm not very attached to walls or people for that matter. So, I've always loved traveling around. A book in my back pocket, a diary, and a pen is all I need to call any place home," said Lou.

Lou went on to star in several films such as her father's Carrément à l’ouest in 2001, Saint Ange in 2004, Go Go Tales in 2007, Gigola in 2010, and another movie by her father, Un enfant de toi in 2012.

Lou went through quite a rebellious stage when she was younger and acquired tattoos and a tongue piercing by the tender age of eleven.

Lou became a Parisian style icon thanks to her distinctive features and high-fashion roots, which has attracted attention from several fashion industry leaders.

"My mother was an icon, but she never lived it in the sense that she was never obsessed with fashion. When I was a young girl my sister wasn't doing fashion, so I started fashion thinking, 'I'm going to do something that they haven't done yet.' That was my silly scheme at the time," said Lou.

Lou has taken on many high-profile campaigns including Tom Ford, Vanessa Bruno, H&M, Free People, Mason Michel, Club Monaco, and 7 For All Mankind.

"I was such a tomboy. I had absolutely no bosom and I wore my hair really short and shaved, like a boy," said Lou on her style as a child.

"I was so bad," said Lou. "Missoni sent me down the catwalk behind Gisele Bundchen. I was like, 'You’re joking!' This girl sends out her legs 1½ meters in front of her and I went on stage and just had a laughing fit. Someone had to come out to get me and bring me backstage. The whole thing was basically one big misunderstanding, but one misunderstanding led to another and another, and suddenly I was doing campaigns," Lou laughed, describing one of her first experiences in the world of fashion.

In 2010, she went on to pursue music, following in her mother’s footsteps with her own shade of uniqueness and elegance.

"It took me so long to get to the music, where that was what I wanted to do all my life. It took me so long to realise that it wasn't really movies that I wanted to do, but to be on stage singing," said Lou.

Her passion for singing and writing songs led her to work with American pianist Christopher Brenner, whom she later went on to co-write the song The Girl Is Gone with.

"Singing is the rawest thing. Having been naked in films or naked in photo shoots, it's nothing compared to singing. It's absolute nakedness. You are stripped bare! It's very strange. Acting seems much easier, in fact, because you are putting on a costume—whereas here, you are taking everything off," said Lou of songwriting.

Her music career really began to form when she decided to release an album of the songs she had written throughout the years. This debut album was titled Places and was released in 2012.

"I'm a very compulsive person, so I spend most of my time drawing or writing my diary, patching things up and carving bits of wood. I’ve carved two of my guitars," said Lou on her hobbies.

"The silhouette is the most important thing in clothes. Every French girl knows that. High-waisted trousers give you long legs and a pretty bum, which, after all, is what we all want," said Lou.

"My mother is old-fashioned—she raised us like girls from a 19th-century book. My sisters and I are known for being the most polite girls in France. My mother wanted us to be like royalty—never ever will you be caught being rude or superficial or being a star or whatever," said Lou on growing up.

Lou has several tattoos, but the one that is most visible and worn proudly on her right forearm is the name of her son, Marlowe.

In 2007, Lou made collections for both La Redoute and Lee Cooper Jeans. Later in 2009, she starred in two short films for Vanessa Bruno.

In 2103, her album Places won Best Female Artist at Les Victoires de la Musique, which is the French version of the Brit Awards.

"I was raised by muses. Women who had men in awe of them and who wrote them movies and wrote them music," Lou said of her mother Jane Birkin and sister Charlotte Gainsbourg.

"When I’m working, I’m sad he’s not around," Lou said about her son Marlowe.

"There is an image of me in France that is a long stretch from who I really am. I read about this girl who lives in grand hotels and has affairs with American actors. I don't recognise this girl at all. Sometimes it makes me depressed. Sometimes it makes me laugh. Sometimes I think, 'Gosh, that sounds nice, I'd love to be that girl,'" said Lou, laughing at the craziness of press and being a celebrity.