We are increasingly convinced that one must know how to do everything, and know how to do it at the highest possible level. In music, as in any other sphere, keeping the curve of approval high has become the primary objective, suppressing creativity and artistic ambition, and in order to remain at the top of the charts many writers and singers have distorted their own image for the sake of sales. This is why losing an artist like Bonnie Tyler hurts today. The Welsh singer, a symbol of Eighties neo-romanticism, has died at 75, leaving behind songs too precious to be merely called iconic. From Total Eclipse of the Heart to Holding Out for a Hero, passing through It’s a Heartache, hers was a music of transition toward the symphonic mash-up that saw rock, pop, and indie merge into ballads without genre limits, a courage that was also reflected in her style as a true anti-diva.

Voluminous Hair and Cat Eyes, Bonnie Tyler’s Stylistic Signature

Bonnie Tyler was above all music, but not only that. Her personal style became synonymous with a glamorous new wave that rejected the glossy codes of the music industry in favor of an authenticity stripped of frills. Her beauty look is the clearest example. Voluminous hair, in an imperfect blonde, often left free to flow in permed curls or in more natural, more Seventies waves, while her make-up focused on enhancing her gaze, with a marked cat eye in earthy tones that accentuated her immensely blue irises. “Turn around, bright eyes,” a lyric that seems written for her, rather than for a lost love. For the lips, instead, glossy lipsticks or ultra-brilliant glosses, in natural rosy nuances. Decisive and strong even in an appearance that never bent to the soft image of femininity promoted by entertainment, Bonnie Tyler above all transcended the label of sex symbol, moving away from the jaws of the male gaze to become an aspirational model for an entire generation of women.

Leather Jackets and Maximalist Jewelry, Bonnie Tyler and Her Eighties Looks

Certainly, the Eighties were anything but sparse in great female artists, who brought the energetic and audacious esprit of the period into their own looks as well. And yet, unlike Pat Benatar or The Runaways, Bonnie Tyler embraced a more Anglo-Saxon vibe, choosing highly hybrid outfits that alternated between masculine suits and leather mini dresses, biker jackets and glittering twin sets. Among her declared inspirations were Tina Turner and the great singer-songwriters of the Seventies, David Bowie above all. A pioneer of power dressing made of maxi shoulder pads and decisive silhouettes, very close as well to the increasingly consolidated idea of the independent career woman, Bonnie Tyler swept through the history of music with her unmistakable timbre and her attitude as an atypical rebel, one who never betrayed herself and who, precisely for that reason, gave us songs that, in a splendidly contemporary way, speak about us.