May 19, 2021: Grace Jones is an unrivaled force to be reckoned with. The successful model, singer, and actress turned 73 years today. Still, she continues to grace us with her presence on the world’s biggest runways and magazine covers like Paper’s 2015 September Issue and Tommy Hilfiger and Zendaya’s collaboration runway show in Spring 2019.
Jones established herself in the 70s and 80s, walking for prominent designers like Yves Saint Laurent and Azzedine Alaïa. The Jamaican-born model was easily spotted out of the crowd of the OG supermodel pack. Her androgynous look, shaved head, and prominent cheekbones that could cut glass caught the eye of designers like the revolutionary Halston and enfant terrible Jean-Paul Gaultier.
Jones’s successful music career also took off like her modeling career. From “Slave to a Rhythm” to “Pull Up To The Bumper,” her lively music became a staple of the 80s disco era. You couldn’t walk into a discotheque without hearing Jones’s voice bouncing off the glittering walls. Socialites and celebrities like Bianca Jagger and Andy Warhol, among others, fancied her sound as much as designers loved her style.
On the subject of nightlife, Jones remained a frequent guest of exclusive Studio 54, where fashion was just as important as the music. In I’ll Never Write My Memoirs, named after the intro of Jones’s 1981 hit song “Art Groupie,” Jones calls herself “the wildest party animal ever, ” describing Studio 54 as the “palace of dreams.” She wrote: “This was where disco became more full-on, and ballooned into the outrageous and, ultimately, the camp.”
Her unique style, so distinct from anything ever regarded before, influences gender-fluid fashion and beauty trends to this day. In honor of Jones’s birthday, GRAZIA is taking a look back at her most memorable style moments through the decades.
