Brigitte Bardot's Enduring Style Legacy: From Bardot Tops to Ballet Flats
Brigitte Bardot significantly influenced fashion and style from the 1950s onward, creating a lasting legacy defined by several signature looks and trends.
The Bardot top, an off-the-shoulder design popularized after Bardot's 1953 appearance at Cannes, was daring for its time and became a fashion staple. Complementing this was her distinctive choucroute hairstyle, a half-up-half-down look that Bardot claimed to have mastered more quickly than Hollywood hairstylists. Leopard print also became synonymous with Bardot's style, worn both in her everyday fashion and films, notably a leopard bikini in Boulevard du Rhum (1971).
Bardot played a key role in popularizing the bikini, particularly after wearing one in Manina, the Girl in the Bikini (1952). Although the bikini was invented in 1946 by Louis Réard, Bardot's on-screen appearances helped bring international attention to the swimwear.
Her style also highlighted the Saint-Tropez sun-worshipping vibe, linking French Gallic heritage with the bohemian Parisian culture of the 1950s and 1960s. Bardot's ballet training influenced her posture, use of headbands, and helped popularize ballet flats, especially the Repetto Cendrillon model launched in 1956, which remains a bestseller.
Originally a brunette, Bardot became an iconic blonde and chose to leave the cinema industry at 39. Her style remains recognized as an instinctive, sensual, and unapologetically free expression of femininity.
