The Icon Archives: Grace Jones
Grace Jones flashes prime ministers, snubs copycats and wears raw meat before anyone else dares. Here is how to steal her nerve.
Grace Jones is an unmistakable beauty with an unapologetic style; the ideal formula for icon status: strength, power, eye and individualism. She’s too cool to care what anyone else thinks (about her, or otherwise). She is the kind of woman who, when questioned by The Guardian about a request to collaborate with Lady GaGa, quipped: “I’d just prefer to work with…someone who is not copying me.”
Her penchant for outlandish exhibitionism has made an impression worldwide. When Joan Rivers asked Jones about her wildest costume, she threw out the time she flashed a prime minister while wearing only a necklace made of animal teeth at a Parisian party.
The word “fierce” was made for Grace. She began her business as a model and quickly catapulted to fame with a top 10 music career in the late ’70s. She went on to see success in her role as an actress, including her brief and memorable appearance as alter ego Strangé in Boomerang, an Eddie Murphy movie from ’92.
She approaches style with an aggressive, raw bent: lots of skin (hers or whatever pelt she favors at the moment), spandex, black, red and chrome. Grace is concerned with standing out, not fitting in. Just ask famed photographer Jean-Paul Goude, who partnered with Grace to put on a Halloween show in ’78 that featured raw meat (GaGa, what?) and a Bengal tiger.
Could we venture as far as to say Prada’s Fall 2012 Ready to Wear collection is copping Grace’s style? Maybe, yes.
Find the video for Grace’s 1981 “Pull Up to the Bumper” where she sports a remarkably familiar slim-fitting, cropped pantsuit. Take a cue from this artist and erase your fear of judgment from peers and acquaintances.
Try marrying her love for anything geometric and leather, then push it further. Grace gives us permission to go over the top; none of this Coco Chanel, “Before leaving the house, a lady should stop, look in the mirror, and remove one piece of jewelry.”
Grace is no lady, there is no teatime. Put down those white gloves and pick up that fierce attitude.
From the MO print archive: this story first ran in The Future Issue of Meets Obsession Magazine.
- Words: Pleatherette DC
- Photographer: Marie Havens for Studio Havens
Keep it loud
