Brigitte Bardot has died at 91. And with her passing comes the end of a cultural era she helped invent — one that reshaped how women, desire, and autonomy were seen on screen and beyond it.

Before Bardot, female sensuality in cinema was tightly choreographed. Controlled. Polite. She arrived barefoot and uncontained. In And God Created Woman, her body wasn’t framed as spectacle so much as force — instinctive, unapologetic, unbothered by approval. She didn’t just represent sex appeal; she redefined it as something lived, not performed.

Her legacy begins there: Bardot made space for a woman who wanted without explanation.

That image — the tousled hair, the unstructured femininity, the sense of refusal, and that barnet to die for — would ripple through decades of fashion, film, and culture. From Jane Birkin to modern muses who trade polish for presence, Bardot’s influence is visible in every woman who chooses ease over elegance, instinct over artifice. She made softness look powerful, pleasure look sovereign, and style effortlessly iconic. She remains the quintessential 60s/70s look, a reference point that women continue to aspire to, even decades later.

But Bardot’s legacy is not confined to what she embodied — it’s also defined by what she rejected.

At the height of her fame, she walked away from cinema entirely. In a culture that demands constant reinvention from women, Bardot’s refusal to participate became radical in itself. She did not age on screen. She did not negotiate relevance. She chose retreat, redirecting her public life toward animal rights activism decades before ethical celebrity became currency.