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My friend Eddy de Clercq is and has always been a very stylish man. During his teens he regularly went on a ferry-boat to London to buy the newest and hippest clothes. His shopping trips started at Biba, the most fashionable & exciting department store ever and to Seditionairies, the boutique by Vivienne Westwood & Malcolm McLaren at World’s End, where he bought the infamous t-shirt with the drawing of two half-naked cowboys by Tom of Finland.
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In Paris he strolled the streets wearing a black suit with pagoda shoulders designed by Yves Saint Laurent, who had recently opened his store ‘Rive Gauche’. Prêt-à-porter as still a new concept then and Yves was the first haute couture designer to embrace the London street style, as one of the first Parisian fashion designers promoting young fashion at affordable prices in specially designed stores.
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One of Eddy’s style icons, maybe even thé style icon, is Brian Jones, founding member of The Rolling Stones.
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When he was 14, he asked the barber to cut his hair just like Brian Jones. Little did he know that Brian never had a serious haircut in his life, he just grew his blonde tresses into a helmet type of hairstyle that covered his forehead and floppy ears completely. When Eddy’s father came into the barbershop and saw his son’s new haircut, he freaked out and ordered the barber to cut it again, but this time into a very short crewcut, American style.
Tears gushed and Eddy was so upset with the result that he ran away from home, only to return after a few months with a genuine Brian Jones hairdo.
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Biography
Lewis Brian Hopkin Jones was born February 28, 1942 in Cheltenham, UK. Young Brian was an excellent student at school and his father hoped his son would follow in his academic footsteps and go to university, but Brian decided against university and started a series of random jobs. He had only one passion: music.
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After being introduced to the music of Charlie Parker, Brian persuaded his parents to buy him a saxophone. Having mastered that instrument, he received an acoustic guitar. At nineteen, he went to a concert of the Chris Barber Band at Cheltenham Town Hall. The set they played included a blues segment and it stimulated Brian to practice the blues on a slide guitar.
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At twenty Brian hitch-hiked to London where he would go to the Ealing Blues Club. It was there one night Mick Jagger and Keith Richards heard Brian play slide guitar and were impressed with his version of Elmore James’s “Dust My Broom”. Soon after Brian, Ian Stewart, Mick and Keith formed a band. On the 12th July 1962 they played their first gig at the Marquee Club, billed as The Rollin’ Stones.
Brian came up with the name the “Rollin’ Stones” (later with the ‘g’) while on the phone with the venue owner.
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Brian’s musicianship had an inevitable influence on the singles that pushed The Rolling Stones into the pop charts. But he was also one of the ultimate 60′s pop stars, with a creative and cutting edge fashion sense and an iconic hairdo to match.
Though they were sharply dressed, Brian always stood out
The Rolling Stones looked like a clean-cut “boy band”.
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In the early days The Rolling Stones looked like a clean-cut “boy band”. Though they were sharply dressed, Brian always stood out (when they weren’t all dressed exactly the same) and he always played the coolest, quirky guitars. The short time he was in the band, Brian Jones transformed from a young lad keeping it sharp to a man living the full on rock and roll decadence.
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A fashion Icon, sharply dressed and always clean cut, Jones wore meticulously fitted velvet jackets. Always more than often, donned in shirts, some striped, others plain, or patterned and often worn with cravats. Style of an eccentric. Brian was the embodiment of unconventional, his famous blonde bowl haircut, hazel eyes and the aesthetic representation. Decorum and grace were all there. Brian had a tremendous lot of clothes and spent an awful amount of time preparing himself for late-night appearances into the clubs.
Brian Jones & Anita Pallenberg
Brian was featured alongside Anita Pallenberg, in an issue of ‘Men in Vogue’, in 1966.
Brian Jones and Anita Pallenberg were a couple from 1965 untill she started dating Keith Richards in 1967. Anita suggested he always tried to look like Francois Hardy. He certainly took a good swing at it, almost hitting the look of darling Hardy, on the very fine nail. Jones’ biographer Geoffrey Giuliano writes about him and Pallenberg: “Together they forged a revolutionary androgynous look, keeping their clothes together, mixing and matching not only fabrics and patterns, but cultures and even centuries. Jones would parade the streets of London wearing a Victorian lace shirt, floppy turn-of-the-century hat, Edwardian velvet frock coat, multi-coloured suede boots, accessorised scarves hanging from his neck, waist and legs along with lots of antique Berber jewellery.”
Marianne Faithfull remembers: One of the best things about visiting Anita and Brian was watching them get ready to go out. What a scene! They were both dauntless shoppers and excessively vain. Hours and hours were spent putting on clothes and taking them off again. Heaps of scarves, hats, shirts and boots flew out of drawers and trunks. Unending trying on of outfits, primping and sashaying. They were beautiful, they were the spitting image of each other and not an ounce of modesty existed between two of them. I would sit mesmerised for hours, watching them preening in the mirror, trying on each other’s clothes. All roles and gender would evaporate in these narcissistic performances, where Anita would turn Brian into the Sun King, Francoise Hardy or the mirror image of herself (Quote from Faithfull by Marianne Faithfull & David Dalton. http://www.amazon.com/Faithfull-An-Autobiography-Marianne/dp/0815410468)
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That blonde bowl haircut that’s so indicative of Brian started to grow out as the suits and striped jumpers were replaced with velvet jackets and shirts with cravats. The jeans got tighter, the boots got bigger.
Beyond the music, trend setting hair style, loves, loathes and lusts, Jones was burdened, like many of his fellow artists, with the abuse of substances such as drugs and alcohol. Brian’s demise was a tragic one, like most of the 27 club ( Music artists who all died at 27 : Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain… and recently Amy Winehouse).
Brian saw his influence over the Stones’ direction slide as their repertoire comprised fewer of the blues covers that he preferred; more Jagger/Richards originals developed, and Andrew Loog Oldham increased his own managerial control, displacing Jones from yet another role. Bill Wyman stated: “There were two Brian’s… one was introverted, shy, sensitive, deep-thinking… the other was a preening peacock, gregarious, artistic, desperately needing assurance from his peers… he pushed every friendship to the limit and way beyond”.
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Brian pulled out of (or actually was forced out) The Rolling Stones in 1969, prior to a planned North American tour. He was unable to join, due to a criminal record for possession of cannabis, but he was also physically no longer able to play instruments. Brian Jones died on the 3rd July 1969, at the age of 27, after he was discovered motionless at the bottom of his swimming pool at Cotchford Farm.
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