Grace Jones
The ICON
Grace Beverly Jones was born in Spanish Town, Jamaica, on May 19. As for the year, 1948 is very popular on several websites, but Jones disagrees:
“They say I’m a lot older than I actually am”
Jones wrote in her 2015 autobiography – “I’ll Never Write My Memoirs”:
“In the press, on the internet, they add about four years to my actual age…I don’t care at all. I like to keep the mystery.”
Grace Jones-Vogue
She moved when she was 13, along with her siblings, to live with her parents in Syracuse, New York. Jones began her modelling career in New York state, then in Paris, working for fashion houses such as Yves St. Laurent and Kenzo, and appearing on the covers of Elle and Vogue. She worked with photographers such as Jean-Paul Goude, Helmut Newton, Guy Bourdin, and Hans Feurer, and became known for her distinctive androgynous appearance and bold features.
Jones herself:
“It’s much more exciting to be the villain and much more me”…”I think the male side is a bit stronger in me and I have to tone it down sometimes. I’m not like a normal woman, that’s for sure.”
Some of her most striking iconography has her hair in a flattop, her strong cheekbones and jawline sharply contoured, and her clothing tailored in the most angular way possible.
“I like dressing like a guy. I love it,” … “The future is no sex. You can be a boy, a girl, whatever you want.”
Giorgio Armani on dressing Grace Jones – Photograph by Jean-Paul Goude
“ You don’t get to stay famous for long unless you’re always switching. Grace Jones is an example of this” – Andy Warhol wrote in his diary
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 1986 wedding to Maria Shriver, Andy and Grace decided to go together. Predictably, they were late. They flew into Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, on her private plane, Jones did her makeup during the flight and when they landed, she dressed in the airport bathroom. In Schwarzenegger’s autobiography, he said he and Shriver “were delighted” Warhol and Jones showed up, but that “they were like gunslingers coming in through the swinging doors of a saloon in a Western movie.”
In the late ’70s, she also had a successful singing career, which eventually led her to Studio 54, where she would become the patron saint of both disco music and style. And 10 years later, she would land her first major acting role as a Bond girl in “A View to a Kill” alongside Roger Moore, proving that she really could do it all.
Grace Jones poses for a James Bond “A View To A Kill” promotional poster wearing a leather jacket and leggings in 1984
“ I’d just prefer to work with someone who is more original and someone who is not copying me. ”
– Grace Jones about Lady Gaga, who have cited her as an inspiration
Grace Jones-1980
Today, living in southwest London, Jones has another role to add to her CV: grandmother to Athena, the daughter of Paulo, a musician, and his dancer wife Azella. ‘I’m a grandmother,’ she declared. ‘So grand.’
“She has something inside that sucks you in…She has so much energy.”
says designer Azzedine Alaïa, who Jones met in her Paris days and who, five decades later, remains a close friend.
