Grace Jones’ autobiography was never going to be a discreet, uncontroversial tale of pop life. The latest sneak preview of the book I’ll Never Write My Memoirs, out later this month, sees Jones taking aim at modern pop stars for copying her image, which has been carefully curated over a career spanning five decades.
She’s right, too. When Kim Kardashian “broke the internet” with her Jones-approved Paper cover last year (a collaboration with Jean-Paul Goude, who masterminded Jones’s visual impact), she was paying homage to the star’s 80s aesthetic. Here are five examples of other pop stars taking on the Jones look.
Kylie Minogue, Can’t Get You Out of My Head (2001)
Jones has always loved a hooded cape. There’s a great shot of her at Studio 54 wearing one, smoking a cigarette in a contemptuous manner. For Minogue’s video, the Australian used a similar shape created, appropriately enough, by the British designer Mrs Jones. Minogue combined the cape with a bodysuit and Kraftwerk-style dancers – also somewhat reminiscent of the ones Jones worked with on her famous live extravaganza A One Man Show.
Lady Gaga, Applause (2013)
Volume was key for Jones’s stage wear during her 00s comeback. This often took the shape of lots of floaty fabric, a set of stairs and a wind machine to make said floaty fabric waft behind her in a dramatic manner. Lady Gaga took a leaf out of her book in this 2013 video, with a dress designed by Gareth Pugh.
Rihanna, Rude Boy (2009)
Rihanna is singled out by Jones as someone copying what she did - specifically the time artist Keith Haring painted her body for a 1984 photograph by Robert Mapplethorpe. Rihanna borrowed the look but, as Jones says, wore a bodysuit. The implication? She’s not quite as committed to her art.
Janelle Monae, Tightrope (2010)
OK, so Monae’s buttoned-up suit is hardly the hard-shouldered number worn by Jones on the cover of the 1981 album Nightclubbing, but female pop stars wearing suits arguably dates back to Jones’s fearsome and pioneering experiments with androgyny in the early 80s. An honourable mention here goes to La Roux, who is partial to Jones-style tailoring and has spoken of Jones’s influence on the sound – and look – of her 2014 album Trouble in Paradise.
Nicki Minaj, Stupid Hoe (2012)
Nicki Minaj is another star called out in Jones’s tirade, and watching this video, you’d have to say that Jones has a point. Minaj both borrows the controversial 1981 image of Jones naked in a cage, and her infamous – and impossible – pose from the cover of 1985’s Island Life. While it was later revealed that this image was actually painstakingly created by Goude using a collage of photographs, it’s unclear if Minaj’s precarious pose is genuine.
