Fashion icon: Catherine Deneuve

The 65-year-old French actress and lifelong friend and muse to Yves Saint Laurent is as famous for her sharp Gallic chic and glacial beauty as her acting. Always stylish, her fashion moment came in 1967, when she starred in Belle de Jour as a bored, wealthy housewife who takes up prostitution for kicks. Saint Laurent dressed her for the role, memorably in a black patent trench coat and matching flats, where the vaguely kinky reference jarred with her bourgeois chignon and flats.

Deneuve was the face of Chanel No 5 in the 1970s, and her image was used to represent Marianne, the national symbol of France, from 1985 to 1989.

Today, she still continues to inspire the fashion world: witness her continued support for the French Haute Couture shows, and her recent appearance in a Louis Vuitton advert. Here, we choose the best outfits worn by this celebrity fashion icon. Danielle Radojcin

See more celebrity fashion icon picture galleries on Handbag...

Picture: Catherine Deneuve in Belle de Jour, 1967.

Fashion icon: Catherine Deneuve

Picture: Catherine Deneuve with David Bailey, on their wedding day in London, 1965.

Fashion icon: Catherine Deneuve

Picture: Catherine Deneuve, with husband David Bailey, at the Cannes Film Festival in the late \'60s.

Fashion icon: Catherine Deneuve

Picture: Ursula Andress and Catherine Deneuve share fashion tips at a Royal Film Performance in London, 1966.

Fashion icon: Catherine Deneuve

Picture: Chignon, fur and jewels: Catherine Deneuve does optimum glamour arriving at a Royal Film Performance of Born Free, London 1966.

Fashion icon: Catherine Deneuve

Picture: Catherine Deneuve, photographed circa 1965, in a leopard print coat.

Fashion icon: Catherine Deneuve

Picture: Catherine Deneuve, arriving for the premiere of her film The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Manhattan, 1964.

Fashion icon: Catherine Deneuve

Picture: Catherine Deneuve does moody chic, circa 1965.

Fashion icon: Catherine Deneuve

Picture: Catherine Deneuve, at the London premiere of the Roman Polanski-directed film Repulsion, in which she stars, in 1964.

Fashion icon: Catherine Deneuve

Picture: Catherine Deneuve, photographed circa 1965, wearing YSL.

Fashion icon: Catherine Deneuve

Picture: Catherine Deneuve at a James Brown concert in Paris, 1967, wearing a fur coat with stockings and ankle strap heels.

Fashion icon: Catherine Deneuve

Picture: Catherine Deneuve, with then-boyfriend Roger Vadim, at Club Saint-Hilaire, Paris 1962.

Fashion icon: Catherine Deneuve

Picture: Catherine Deneuve shares a joke with friend Yves Saint Laurent, backstage at his fashion show, Paris 1968.