Caribbean Beat — November/December 2018 (#154)

Mike Coppola/Staff/Getty Images
She left Jamaica at the age of thirteen to join
her parents in Syracuse, New York. By twenty, she
had abandoned her attempt to become a Spanish
teacher and instead became a fashion model —
eventually dubbed “the ultimate fashion muse” by
Vogue. Her dramatic bone structure and unapologetic
androgyny made her a hit on the runway,
adored by the likes of designers Yves Saint Laurent
and Issey Miyake, and at once she was sought after
as a model for big-name photographers Helmut
Newton and Guy Bourdin. From the moment she
arrived in Paris in 1970, she became a member of
the elite party crowd. In addition to sharing a flat
with American actresses Jessica Lange and Jerry
Hall — in Bloodlight and Bami she tells off a TV
producer in impeccable French — she often tore
up the dancefloor with the likes of designer Karl
Lagerfeld.
Considered “a touchstone for designers in need
of a muse to channel fearlessness, androgyny, and
raw sex appeal,” Jones soon had a list of admirers including everyone from
the Tunisian-French couturier and shoe designer Azzedine Alaïa to the Italian
fashion designer Riccardo Tisci.
Jones’s statuesque flamboyance proved to be a hit in the New York City
nightclub world, too — she was one of the most memorable characters to
emerge from the infamous Studio 54 disco scene. An encounter with fellow
Jamaican Chris Blackwell led to a recording contract with his Island
Records in 1977, and the girl from Spanish Town moved from top model to
pop star. She made the transition with an insouciant confidence that has
not diminished in the slightest with time. While her first three albums —
Portfolio, Fame, and Muse — weren’t commercial hits, gay men loved her.
For her sexually charged live performances, she was dubbed “Queen of the
Gay Discos.”
Her album covers were studies in and of themselves — the suit and
cigarette on Nightclubbing, that nude arabesque on the cover of Island
Life: they made you stop and think, and you never forgot them. She
made the hooded scarf her own, and the geometric flat top was suddenly sexy
on a woman. Then there was the body paint. Her Afrofuturist image and Cubist
fashion, her close crop and dazzling makeup made her an instant icon.
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