She has a reputation for always being late. But she’s simply ahead of her time. Grace Jones says of herself: “I saw myself as energy that hadn’t yet been classified.” So perhaps it takes a degree in physics to do this artist justice. Unfortunately, we don’t have one. Nevertheless, we look back on a career whose future is far from over.
This summer was hot and full of bad news. So, as a little ray of hope, here’s this: Grace Jones still pulls her top down on stage and doesn’t give a fuck what the world thinks about it. That same stunt reportedly earned her a lifetime ban from all of Mickey Mouse’s amusement parks following a 2008 concert at Walt Disney World. After all, to the amusement industry and its entertainment factories, Grace Jones has always been more terrifying than an evil sorceress who’s in love with her own reflection, or a chain-smoking millionaire who wants a fur coat made of Dalmatian puppies. Even Karl Lagerfeld and Arnold Schwarzenegger would get weak in the knees when Jones entered the room and filled it to the farthest corner with her aura. She throws herself into every task with the intensity of a gladiator fighting in the arena for life and death and the cheers of the crowd. The fabulous rise of Grace Jones is not for the faint of heart—and fortunately, that’s why it will never make for a Disney fairy tale.
FASHION FURIOUS
Once upon a time… in Spanish Town, Jamaica. Grace Jones once laconically described her childhood on the island with the words: “Read the Bible, get beaten.” Her parents had emigrated to the U.S., and Grace and her siblings were raised by a step-grandfather who tried to drill the Word of God into the children with an iron fist. As a teenager, Jones followed her parents to America and took the promise of the “Land of the Free” at face value. For a time, she lived in a nudist commune and hung out with the Hell’s Angels. But Jones quickly realized that in the United States of the 1960s, freedom had its limits for people like her. Her attempts to break into modeling in New York seemed futile: too Black, too masculine, too nonconformist. American fashion photography back then was as wild as cookie dough splatters on a kitchen apron. With Jones around, it was like a Caribbean hurricane threatening to tear the whole kitchen apart. For a while, Grace kept her head above water as a go-go dancer before she dared to make the leap across the ocean. In Paris, she ended up in what is probably the most iconic shared apartment in fashion history, along with Jerry Hall and Jessica Lange. Soon, in Parisian nightlife, it was no longer the lights of the Eiffel Tower that were the city’s biggest spectacle, but Jones’s party escapades. Grace also lived out her club excesses in front of the camera. In the photo studio, she was no obedient ragdoll, waiting for the photographers’ commands. The model with cheekbones as sharp as flying arrowheads dictated her own poses, dominating photo shoots with a blend of aggression and elegance. In France, Grace conquered the covers of *Vogue* and *Elle*. And upon her return to Manhattan, she conquered the rest of the world.
54 AND 007
Back in New York City, the pages of fashion magazines were no longer enough to showcase Grace Jones’s talents. At the Studio 54 nightclub, where her paths (and white lines on the glass table) crossed with those of Salvador Dalí, Andy Warhol, and Debbie Harry, among others, Jones began her singing career. Her music was a sizzling melting pot of disco, reggae, and new wave, tempered with a dash of French sophistication. But it wasn’t just the innovative sound on albums like *Warm Leatherette* (1980), *Nightclubbing* (1981), and *Slave to the Rhythm* (1985) that made Grace a global pop icon. Together with the photographer—and, at times, lover—Jean-Paul Goude, she developed a visual language for the album covers that made the model appear like a sculpture left behind for our admiration by a far superior extraterrestrial race. Fashion designers such as Issey Miyake, Claude Montana, and Azzedine Alaïa now lined up before Jones like the Three Wise Men—ready to present her with the most outlandish outfits. New York City lay at Grace Jones’s feet. So she took Hollywood by storm. Trained by her bodyguard, karate instructor, and new boyfriend Hans “Dolph” Lundgren, she snarled at Arnold Schwarzenegger in the action epic “Conan the Destroyer” (1984) and knocked Roger Moore out in the James Bond film “A View to a Kill” (1985). In the cult horror film “Vamp” (1986), she slipped back into the role of a go-go dancer, this time in a body painting by Pop Art artist Keith Haring. But even more than his artwork, Grace Jones was shaped by life itself in the late 1980s. The AIDS pandemic had claimed the lives of a large portion of her circle of friends and creative peers. Alcohol and drug binges began to take a toll on the artist’s mental and physical health. She ended her relationship with Dolph Lundgren with a gun drawn. She found respite from the heat of all these battles, among other places, where it all began: Spanish Town, Jamaica.
LIVE GOES ON
Fortunately, this story doesn’t end with “… happily ever after.” For its final chapter seems not yet to have been written. In recent years, Jones has repeatedly drawn new strength from her old home, releasing, among other works, the magnificent late-career album *Hurricane* (2008). Artists like Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, and Róisín Murphy pay homage to Grace Jones, even if they’ve never quite matched the raw, primal power of this perfect whirlwind of fashion, music, and decadence. Nor do they need to. Because the original hasn’t run out of steam to this day. This summer, Grace Jones’ concerts—featuring even unreleased songs!—turned back the clock. But they also moved it forward. Because Grace Jones is neither the past nor the future. She is energy that has yet to be classified and has opened up a completely new creative cosmos for us.
GRACE JONES – I’LL NEVER WRITE MY MEMOIRS
Fortunately, she lied. A line from her song “Art Groupie” serves as the title of Grace Jones’s autobiography. While she may seem as enigmatic as a sphinx beneath a disco ball in her art, Jones reveals quite a few secrets in her memoirs. The journey takes us from the church pews of Jamaica to the photo studios of Paris and the dance floor excesses of Manhattan. In 2026, the book will celebrate its tenth anniversary, and it still reads as fascinatingly as an epic from another world.
Grace Jones & Paul Morley, “I’ll Never Write My Memoirs,” 400 pages, approx. 20.–, simonandschuster.com
Teaser: The crown jewel of 1980s pop art: Grace Jones, 1988.
Who else do we consider iconic? Jane Fonda.
Grace Jones keeps up with the times and is actually on Instagram.
Photos: © pa picture alliance (dpa)
