BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY
Andy Warhol as babysitter. Mick and Bianca Jagger as parents. Ibiza and Goa as home. Designer and decorator JADE JAGGER’s is truly a life less ordinary.
Style, the kind that seems at home in, and yet distinct from, its surroundings has always intrigued me.
Jade Jagger, I realise within minutes of meeting her, has it to spare.
It’s easy to catch out contrived style in Goa, especially on the stretch of Morjim that Jade calls home. She lives next door to La Plage, gourmet temple of the chic set, while Bardo and Marbela make up the neighbourhood. This isthe playground of party-happy pretty people, where the bodies are taut, the swimsuits range from Eres to Shivan & Narresh, the nails are coral,the diamonds big, and a skilled eye can tell that the masses of sexy, beachy hair on display came out of a salon rather than the sea.
Then Jade strolls out of her cottage, and you get a taste of the real thing. Her skin, honey-coloured, glows with health, not bronzer. Her simple monochrome shift in black and white ends mid thigh, a delicate ring sits on her left hand, sunglasses are perched on her head and hold her tousled hair back, and her feet are bare, with just a slick of transparent polish on buffed nails. It’s an image light years away from the one made legendary by her mother, Bianca, who famously rode into New York’s iconic Studio 54 on a white stallion, led by a naked man.
And that was the relatively less famous parent. As Mick Jagger’s daughter, Jade was going to be famous whether she wanted it or not. What’s remarkable is how she has negotiated her encounters with fame, and made it work for her—she is today as much Jade as she is Jagger, a designer whose oeuvre straddles jewellery, interiors, clothes, and canvas. She wears her last name with pride but without dependence, and accepts without apology the privilege of parenthood that placed her in situations straight out of fiction. Andy Warhol routinely babysat her as a child of four (and apparently said that Jade was more his speed than either Mick or Bianca); Steve Jobs brought Mick-—and instead gave
As Mick Jagger’s daughter, Jade was going to be famous whether she wanted it or not. What’s remarkable is how she has negotiated her encounters with fame, and made it work.for her.
to Jade—one of the first Mac computers he ever made; and her mother was muse to legendary designer Halston.
Those aren’t experiences you can weigh in terms of wealth or fame. They were life-forming for Jade, who recognises that being around brilliance was the true luxury of being a Jagger. “I was privileged to be around incredibly creative people,” she tells me. “I started to paint as a child, and was always encouraged to experiment, because of the people who were in our lives.”
While a wild streak was almost obligatory, given her background, she seems to have got it out of her system remarkably early. Pregnant at 19, and again a few years later, she had two daughters by the time she was 24 with fellow art student Piers Jackson. But while others may have been content to let a trust fund do the parenting, Jade’s desire to provide for her daughters kicked her professional ambitions into high gear: She launched Jade Inc, her jewellery and fashion brand, and set about putting her business-savvy where her style was. It was evident she had both. Aspiring rock chicks were happy to shell out for glitzy hoodies emblazoned with Jezebel—her middle name, and the name of her clothing line—while the venerable jewellery-makers to the queen, Garrard and Co., gave her design cred serious validation when they appointed her creative director before she turned 30.
But if Jade Inc thrived in the world’s beautiful cities, Jade herself discovered the place she felt more at home in, more than London and New York: Ibiza. Party-town to the world, for Jade it became the idyllic spot to raise her girls: Intimate, safe, beautiful.
Her love of Ibiza, which she made home for the next 10 years, was mirrored by a love affair with Goa—one that dates back to before Goa acquired its current chic status among the country’s swish set. “I’ve been coming to Goa for 20 years now,” she says. “To this particular home for seven.”
Her Goa home speaks of her effortless aesthetic more authentically than anything else: Not for Jade the swanky villas and high-wall hideaways of the A-list. Hers is a beach home in character as much as name, a series of cottages built at different levels that celebrate local materials and crafts, proximity to the sea, and a love for the outdoors. There are flashes of the chic urbanite—a black-and-white chevron rug, a striking contemporary sofa—but otherwise all is in sync with the surroundings. Her love for the outdoors means the property is studded with outdoor seating areas: Porches are treated like sitting rooms, with rugs, candles, comfortable daybeds, all shaded by the canopy of old trees, while tiled, thatched roofs are a nod to practicality as much as local style. Copper matkas hold cutlery, linens are in traditional Indian prints. The waves can be heard from all parts of the house, seen from a few; were she to walk out onto the beach and turn left, a couple of minutes would bring her to her eponymous boutique, Jade Jagger, that retails her jewellery and select pieces of clothing.
The store brings a taste of Jagger’s style to the business of retail: It speaks of her refined aesthetic, yet is unapologetically a beach shack, and far more intriguing than a conventional brick-andmortar store. “I’m all about laidback luxury,” she smiles, “and I’ve found that vacations are the perfect time for a spot of indulgent shopping. You’re relaxed, you may be celebrating something, you’re often accompanied by a husband or partner… people often pick a special piece to remember a trip or an occasion. So many pieces I own have that kind of meaning. They’ve been bought with my father, with my girls, with a partner. The store on the beach is just right for that. It feeds spontaneity.”
It doesn’t hurt that, despite her pared-down style or propensity to walk barefoot in the sand, she is very much a celebrity. Indeed, with her bohemian vibe and colourful past—which includes Kate Moss as bestie, and a dating roll call that reads like the Who’s Who—she is as much brand ambassador as she is designer, with professional interests across the globe, and a lifestyle that demands living out of suitcases for extended periods of time. It doesn’t seem to cramp her style in the least. “It’s easy to play with your look in Ibiza or Goa,” she says. “There’s an easygoing vibe that encourages experimentation. And yet, if you want to learn to pack light, you have to find a certain look that is consistent with who ‘you’ are. I may go to Moscow or London straight from Goa, it’s important to have a sensibility that can translate easily.