Last of the dandies: Jagger’s Sixties style guru dies at 79
He SPEARHEADED Sixties London counterculture and became a style guru for Mick Jagger and Bob Geldof. now tributes have poured in for one of Britain’s most iconic antiques dealers, Christopher Gibbs, who sadly passed away at home in Tangier, Morocco, at the age of 79 last Saturday.
He was one of the most treasured antiques dealers of his generation, whose clients included Jacob Rothschild, paul Mellon and Crue Heinz. Kicked out of eton for duping the local antiquarian bookseller into buying back its own stock, Gibbs set up shop in Islington just as Sixties London began to swing.
He played a key role in bringing together a group of socialites, designers and pop stars — including the Rolling Stones — reinventing the idea of dandyism and sparking the decade’s flares and floral shirts revolution.
The last of the great dandies, Gibbs became embroiled in mischief throughout his life — and was even at Keith Richards’ Sussex mansion when it was stormed by police and Marianne Faithfull was escorted out wearing nothing but a fur rug.
He said of the infamous Redlands drug bust: ‘I remember it as in a dream. We’d probably had a joint and there we all were sitting around in this nice place having something to eat when suddenly all these Sussex policemen were lumbering through the door.
‘I remember Miss Marianne clutching her peignoir about her. And people being taken off into rooms for questioning.
‘The policemen weren’t rude exactly. Just quite policeman-like.’
Gibbs was the set designer on the 1970 film performance, which starred James Fox and Mick Jagger — and even became godfather to one of Jagger’s children. A 1990 profile in the new York Times sang his praises, calling him a ‘leading proponent of that elusive brand of anti-decoration, high-bohemian taste favoured by self-confident englishmen, a look based on well-worn grandeur, disarming charm and unexpected contrasts’.
He edited the shopping guide for the quarterly Men In Vogue, one of the very first male editions of the hit fashion magazine which was closely credited with influencing the onset of the ‘peacock revolution’ — a period that saw a huge shift in men’s fashion as blokes swapped tailored suits for more flamboyant styles.
In 2000, Gibbs sold his family home in oxfordshire and later auctioned off its contents which showcased his eclectic tastes, including a dining table made from one of the first bits of mahogany brought to england, and a portrait of Cornish eccentric John nichols Thom.
Gibbs was said to own several luxury pads in Morocco. According to a close pal, one of his houses was ‘on 14 acres in Tangier next door to the king’ and some said he had even built four other houses in the Arab country and lived in whichever abode took his fancy.