Charlotte Gainsbourg for W Magazine Korea Vol.7 'Women In Motion' by Peter Ash Lee

Charlotte Gainsbourg takes a cover of W Magazine Korea [IG] Vol.7 July 2025 ‘Women In Motion’ issue. Peter Ash Lee [IG] captures the actor wearing Saint Laurent throughout the fashion story, styled by Shin Kim, with creative direction by Nat Canguilhem, who also collaborated with Nicolas Salet aka ne3ko on last week’s Saint Laurent SS2026 mens show in Paris. / Hair by Yuji Okuda; Yusaku Nakahara

Gainsbourg has been an ambassador for the house since 2017, and the Kering-owned brand is the main donor to the museum opened in her father Serge Gainsbourg's home at 5 bis rue de Verneuil. Saint Laurent donated an initial €900,000 to the project and has collaborated multiple ways now that the museum is open.

The W Korea interview is very chit-chatty and Gainsbourg shares her first experience with being photographed by Steven Meisel. The Saint Laurent rock star didn’t even know where to put her hand, because she was “ashamed to look into the camera”.

Gainsbourg on Meisel Teaching Her How to Pose Before the Camera

Meisel put a big mirror in front of her, saying “I’ll pose, so you should look in the mirror and pose.” Under the photographer’s tutelage, Gainsbourg experienced a total transformation in her images, as she learned to ‘live’ the pose in that moment by pouring herself into it. While acting is different than a fashion shoot, Gainsbourg says what Meisel taught her had a major influence on her acting as well.

Gainsbourg on Directing the Documentary About Her Mother

The Saint Laurent talent shares that making the documentary ‘Jane by Charlotte’ about her mother Jane Birkin became a very complex endeavor.

The problem is that I started without knowing what I wanted. That must have been dissatisfied with mom. Because I was too vague. Mom must have thought I would make a documentary about her professional life and work. I didn't want to make something that would have already been made about my mother, and I wanted a much more personal story. So my mother was uncomfortable with my approach at first, and eventually stopped working for about 2 years. In the meantime, I came to understand what I really wanted to do.

When the documentary project resumed Birkin gave her daughter complete creative freedom, with the clarification that the film was equally a documentary about herself. The director stresses that while she now had original and fascinating footage of Jane Birkin, it was really in the editing process that she leaned into building the documentary with its eventual structure and learning the intensity of looking into someone’s face as they expressed the flow of their emotions.

Read the entire interview link in third paragraph. It begins light and breezy but becomes progressively better with each new question.

Related: Kate Moss Channels Serge Gainsbourg in Saint Laurent SS 2021 Campaign by Juergen Teller

The Saint Laurent photoshoot happens on Paris’ graffiti-rich Rue de Verneuil, home to one of the original 20th century provocateurs Serge Gainsbourg. Daughter Charlotte Gainsbourg — whose mother is Jane Birkin — has a long history with Saint Laurent.

Charlotte joined Kate Moss for the Spring/Summer 2019 Saint Laurent Menswear Collection show in New York Harbor’s Liberty Park on the Jersey side.