In a decade of style icons, Marianne Faithfull was the most rock ‘n’ roll of all
Marianne Faithfull – the popstar, one-time girlfriend of Mick Jagger and Sixties style icon – has died at the age of 78.
While she might be remembered by many for her doomed romance with the Rolling Stones frontman, it is her inimitable and unique sense of style that will undoubtedly be her lasting legacy.
Alongside Anita Pallenberg – the partner of first Brian Jones and then Keith Richards – Faithfull was credited with influencing the sartorial direction of the Stones, so much so that she and boyfriend Jagger were pioneers of the ‘his and hers’ wardrobe, regularly being photographed wearing each other’s clothing.
Yet when she first emerged onto the pop music scene in 1964, aged just 17, she was the quintessential Sixties dolly bird. Performing her single, As Tears Go By (which had been one of Jagger and Richards’ first song-writing efforts), she wore a babydoll dress with a perfect blonde fringe, and could have been mistaken for any number of her contemporaries, including Pattie Boyd and Jean Shrimpton.
By the time she began an affair with Jagger in 1966 (she was married to her first husband, John Dunbar, at the time), her look had already started to evolve to mirror her growing confidence as she emerged from girlhood into womanhood. As the Swinging Sixties reached its apex, she had ditched the Peter Pan collars and Mary-Janes completely, swapping them for a more rock ‘n’ roll aesthetic, made up of sharp suiting, fur coats and leather trousers – often accessorised with a cigarette.
With a party girl reputation, it’s no coincidence that some of her most memorable looks are from occasions on which she had a brush with the law. When Jagger and Richards were charged with drug offences in 1967, Faithfull supported her boyfriend in a ruffled blouse, high-waisted black trousers and a black coat, with her tortoiseshell sunglasses balanced on her head. In 1969, she left court alongside Jagger in a chic cape coat, white tights and ballet flats, cigarette in hand, hair slicked back, after the pair were caught with Cannabis. Then of course there is the infamous legend of Faithfull being caught up in her own drugs bust – wearing nothing but a fur rug.
While her star waned in the 1970s as she grappled with drug addiction, homelessness and mental-health issues, her style found a new legion of fans in the 1990s, when ‘60s fashion was all the rage again. Upon her return to the zeitgeist, she became a symbol of someone who had defied the odds and survived – and thus more rock ‘n’ roll than ever.
One of her most notable sartorial acolytes is Kate Moss, though it did once lead to a bust-up between the two, with Faithfull accusing the model of stealing her look (though she did later apologise). Later on, other rock ‘n’ roll-adjacent It girls, like Alexa Chung, Suki Waterhouse and Sienna Miller, also channelled their inner Faithfull, which is more about an attitude – of simultaneous vulnerability and daring – than a specific uniform (though a good fur coat goes a long way).
In the 2000s, the fashion industry fully embraced Faithfull as one of their own, with countless British designers in particular inspired by her sartorial back catalogue, including her friend, John Galliano. Clare Waight Keller’s Chloé girl owed a lot to Faithfull’s insouciance and coquettishness, as did Kate Moss’s countless sell-out collections for Topshop. She was a guest of honour at Chanel and Chloé, collaborating with the latter on spoken word poetry as a soundtrack to the AW 2021 show (and sitting next to fangirl Lucy Boynton, who was at one time rumoured to be playing her in a film of her life). Her style icon – and national treasure – status was further cemented by a cameo in Absolutely Fabulous, in which she played God (opposite Pallenberg as the Devil).
Yet despite her devoted fashion fanbase, Faithfull thought of herself as “hopeless” when it came to style – instead crediting Pallenberg with helping her get dressed. She wrote in The Guardian in 2017: “She would put me together, tell me what to wear, get me to look right. I’d give her books, and she’d like that.”
It is often seen as reductive to be dubbed a muse, yet so much of Faithfull’s ability to inspire others was rooted not only in her beauty but in her intellect and attitude. In many ways, she changed what it meant to be seen as simply a rock ‘n’ roll groupie – flipping it on its head to become one of the most imitated women in the world. Her legacy will not be simply as Mick Jagger’s one-time girlfriend, or as a Sixties style icon: but as the Sixties style icon.
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