Lou Doillon is in the middle of things. An inopportune snowstorm, for one—the sort of New York sneeze that gums up traffic and sends personal effects flying. Fortunately, her wide-brimmed Gucci hat, nearly soaked through, has not escaped her. “It’s got a string to hold it, which I would have never gone for normally. But there was that wind, and I was like, A-ha!” she says, settling into an East Village cafe on a recent morning, her long, mussed shag the better for wear.

The 36-year-old Parisian lately finds herself in the midst of another flurry. Last month, Doillon released her third album, Soliloquy, which—in a milestone for the musician—has her fingerprints all over it, from the back-end production to the tattoo-inspired drawings for each track. And in the coming months, she headlines a series of shows across Europe. The stage is a welcome break from the promotional circuit. “Everything that I do has to do with tiny feelings,” she says, referring as much to an acoustic songwriting process as to her delicate sketches, whereas “sometimes the machine of the system asks you to be a kind of bulldozer.” Her spindly hands wrap around a mug of black coffee, like one of her illustrated Astier de Villatte ceramics come to life. “As soon as you’re back on tour, you’re back to that very simple connection that it’s just a song.”

The urge to strip away artifice feels like a maternal trait passed down from Jane Birkin. Both mother and daughter share a self-effacing warmth in conversation; they also defy easy categorization when it comes to creative work. Doillon was five when she made her film debut, in Agnès Varda’s Kung Fu Master; she passed up art school for young motherhood (her son, Marlowe, is almost 17), all the while serving as a perennial fashion muse. That spangly blue Gucci dress in the video for her night-out anthem, “Too Much”? “It’s is a mixture of a carwash and Cookie Monster,” Doillon says with a laugh. “There’s something that I love about a first-degree party and getting ready for it. I find that in a time where people are very cynical, very self-centered, very blasé, I’m happy to be extremely giddy and stupidly happy. It’s my way of fighting back, in a way.” That modern resilience is there in her commitment to self-administered bang trims and tour-bus beauty hacks. It’s also there in the way she shrugs off a brief tape-recorder malfunction—a meta-event that underscores her interest in life’s imperfect, fleeting moments. “I’m sure you’ll remember,” she says. “I’m sure you’ll know the feeling.”

Vanity Fair: Your career has been so wide-ranging. Where do you feel like you fit in?

Lou Doillon: I’ve got a strange situation, which is that I belong to no gang. For a long time it was very lonely, and now I understand that not only is it a good place, but it’s where all my creation comes from. Since I was a child, for the English, I was French; for the French, I was English. For the very famous gang, I wasn’t famous enough; for the intellectual gang of my father [French film director Jacques Doillon] and all the independent movies, I was too famous and too associated with my mum. For the theater people, I’m a movie actress; for movie actresses, I’m a model; for the models, I’m a musician; for the musicians, I am an artist. It’s this ongoing joke! All of those jobs are quite closed, and the only one part that’s actually very curious of other people, very used to the fact that life can change like that, is the fashion world. It’s only going to a Gucci show that suddenly you’re sitting next to Martin Parr, you’re having a conversation with Nick Cave, then you’ve got kids from bands you’ve never heard of, you’ve got contemporary artists, you’ve got Agnès Varda. As someone who loves to create, my mind gets blown out when I’m surrounded by those people because they always have stories to tell.

What’s the mood you’re setting for this tour, in terms of clothes and makeup?

I think it’s going to be fun to try on some costumes and have a bit of fun onstage. For this tour, I thought, I can’t be in jeans and a T-shirt. I will be wearing glittery dresses, and no hair and makeup, because I never like to have everything going the same way. I love to go and find vintage stores in every city that I [perform] in, if I’ve got the time. I often buy something that day that I’ll wear that night, so there’s this kind of ongoing chain. I always believe clothes are like totems; they’re spiritual things. It’s a way to connect with a city.

How do you manage life on the road? Do you sheet-mask on the bus, or are you pretty low-key?

I’m super low-key. I’ve got rituals of living on a bus, which is pajamas and nice shoes—as in slippers—and just being able to have something that resembles normality. You get to a point where there’s not even a sink on the bus, so then you get practical. I guess it’s closer to people who go on a North Pole mission! You’ve got the bottle of water that you keep so you can at least dip your toothbrush in it; the [facial] water spray, because you are taking your makeup off in the dark in a moving car. You find little mirrors with tiny lights in them, with batteries, where at least you can vaguely see what you’re doing.

What about haircuts on the road—who trims your bangs?

Me! I can be tough on myself, but I hate being pissed off at other people. So I would rather hate myself for fucking up my haircut than deal for one second with a hairdresser who fucks it up. It happened once. I was 16. He did a bad job, and I could have murdered him! I didn’t sleep for months.

You and your mother are in the pantheon of bang wearers.

I haven’t got a choice, in the sense that I have such a lack of forehead and so much hair that I would absolutely look like Chewbacca if I didn’t have a fringe [laughs].

What about the blonde highlights?

I’ve actually been doing it for five or six years. When you work a lot and you’ve got a very narrow face like mine and you’re a bit tired, to have just dark hair is harsh. [The blonde] brings a bit of that sunshine back to the face, but I don’t like for it to be done by a hairdresser. I do it once a year with the bleach that brunettes use for mustaches—in France it’s called Jolen—which I love because it’s a kind of in-between. I do it without any form of effort, without brushing it, just so that it [bleaches] it in lumps. Otherwise I’ve got a lovely hairdresser who does color on my roots because I’ve had a white fringe since I was 23 or 24—from worries! Many, many worries. That I get a professional to do, but the rest, I like it when it’s a bit off.

Otherwise your approach to beauty seems pretty naturalistic.

I like organic products most of the time. I love Tata Harper, and I love pharmacy products. I’ve got a dermatologist who’s very funny, who says, “Your skin is exactly like everything you do: very sensitive and very reactive.” And it’s a nightmare. If someone kisses me with a beard, I will [break out]. If I’ve been around people I don’t like, I start having cold sores. If I stay in a club for too long listening to music I don’t like, I have an ear infection. I still have greasy, sometimes dry, problematic skin, so I use products that are not too thick, not too creamy. And for makeup, the same. My skin can’t stand powder. But always, as soon as I wake up, lipstick—just smudged and put under the eyes. One that I love, by Lipstick Queen, is called Frog Prince.

What attracts you to hands as a subject? Your drawings have wound up in books, on mugs, and in the video for your song with Cat Power.

Everything goes through the hands. It’s our link to the world. It’s the first thing we do when there is a baby that’s born. It’s the last thing we do to say goodbye to dead people, to touch them. It’s your relation to food, it’s your relation to love, it’s your relation to your body. And then they become like trees: you can see that they’re taking the direction of what you’ve done with them. Pianists’ hands. Masons’ hands. I’ve got a friend who does pottery; pottery absolutely destroys hands. It’s beautiful! And [how we see] us age, also—much more than our face. They are the hardest thing to draw, the hardest thing to hide.

Do you do your own manicures?

When I have time, I go to a wonderful place in Paris called Vesna, but when I haven’t got time, I do it by myself. I have a strong tenderness for people who can’t do their own nail varnish, which I always find very sweet. But, no—I’m a good artisan.

Have you drawn tattoos—for other people or yourself?

This one [on her left arm] I just wrote, “It’s just a ride.” It’s Bill Hicks, which keeps me going. That [“Marlowe,” on the right arm] my son wrote. Otherwise, no. I’ve met people who have tattooed my drawings of hands on them, which I find fun. And people have asked me to draw tattoos for them, and I can’t. The pressure is too high!

How did you come to design temporary tattoos for each song?

I wanted to be able to give something to people; at the same time, I knew that, in the economy of today, something luxurious would be impossible—because you want people to be able to afford the box. I thought, well, the only precious thing that I can give is something that takes time and love, so that’s drawing. And because we live in a world where people want you to talk about every song and reveal what’s behind it, I thought, if I do a drawing, then I’m out of having to talk about the song! It’s funny because I met a fan in the street last week who said, “Can I have it tattooed? I’ll write your name next to it.” And I said, “You’ve got to be kidding. If you want to tattoo it on your body for the rest of your life, please don’t ask me—do whatever you want, it’s your body. And please don’t put a bloody trademark next to it.”

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