The Rock chick – A style classic.

 

 

Kate Moss has apparently got married recently. According to reports, the bride was barefoot and wearing a see thru dress. It was a hippy ceremony and the groom was rocker Jamie Hince of The Kills. If this information is correct, then the ultimate rock chick is now officially off the market. She will officially be a rock and roll wife, part of music royalty. Maybe this is something she always aspired to be.

Kate has long been a rock and roll queen. She has cultivated the friendships of music stars, from Beth Ditto and Ronnie Wood, to Oasis and the Osbourne’s. She had a long-standing, stormy relationship with Pete Doherty, the drug addled, but charismatic front man of the iconic band The Libertines, and formed a habit of performing star karaoke whenever an opportunity arose. During her time with Pete she was often found performing backing vocal for Babyshambles during the song La Belle et la Bete, and had a songwriting credit on the CD Shotters Nation. Like all the great rock chicks, she has been the inspiration for songs – ‘What Katie did Next’ by Babyshambles, and possibly 505 by The Arctic Monkeys. And like her great friend Marianne Faithfull, her personal rock chic style is awe-inspiring and fabulous, and has been copied a million times over.

Kate’s rock chick look has been the star of a thousand rock concerts and festivals. She made Hunter wellies covetable, especially if worn with barely there hot pants and a simple waistcoat. She decided that the perfect counterbalance to mud was glitter and sparkle, and added gold lurex jumpers and vintage beaded capes to her festival costumes.  Her leather leggings and spiked boots stared at Glastonbury during her relationship with Doherty, and her red leather pixie shoe boots inspired a thousand copies on the High Street.

Kate wore a stunning black sequined mini dress on the night she was evicted from the NME awards for apparently ‘making out’ with Doherty in the toilets. She wore a long skirt of her own design whilst being hung out of a window by Doherty and Carl Barat after a gig. Whatever she did in her role of rock chick, she did stylishly, with a wardrobe filled with clothes you would die for.

Kate was following in a whole trail of stylish rock chicks with impeccable personal style. Anita Pallenburg and Marianne Faithfull had been the first rock consorts to be cool and stylish in their own right. Pallenburg was a stunning German Model and actress who stole the hearts and minds of at least two Rolling Stones. Micro mini’s in vibrant psychedelic prints, skinny ribs polo neck sweaters, high leg boots, floppy hats and large framed sunglasses were her personal style, she looked amazing with her tanned long limbs and blonde hair.

Marianne Faithfull was something totally different from the ‘Dolly birds’ that dominated the sixties. She was the beautiful, innocent looking daughter of a Baroness, an intellectual with the face of an angel. Before she was eighteen, she was married, a mother and a successful pop singer with four top ten hits to her name. She looked like an angel, with a heart shaped face, long blonde hair and big blue eyes. But her angelic looks belied the heart of a rock chick. Faithfull turned her back on her husband, child and successful career to become the partner of the debauched Mick Jagger, and thus formed one of rock’s most notorious partnerships. Her personal style at this point was amazing – Velvet and brocade frock-coat, lace frilled collars, mannish suits and ties, Pucci print dresses, crocodile print belted jackets with large sunnies. She wore a leather catsuit in ‘Girl on a motorcycle‘ and a stunning floor length black evening gown in ‘The rock and roll circus’. Her music was amazing too, ‘Something better’ and ‘Sister Morphine‘ are absolute classics that rate with the stunning and groundbreaking ‘Broken English’ as her top tunes.

Unfortunately for Anita and Marianne, addiction to heroin blighted their lives, although they both emerged older and wiser, in the 1980’s. But their sixties image remains a blueprint for the rock chick look, for a sexy, cool girl who’s ‘with the band’. And forty years on from their swinging sixties heyday, Kate Moss took their style, replicated it with modern touches and made the rock chick look fashion forward all over again.

Who knows what married respectability is going to do to that look. Maybe the mantel will be passed on to a new generation of stylish rock chicks like Florence Welch and Ladyhawke. Maybe Alexa Chung will be the rock chick icon of choice to copy at festivals. Maybe…but I doubt Mrs Hince is ready to hang up her capes and wellies just yet, especially as her husband spends his working day with an equally stunning rock chic – the delectable Alison Mosshart…

Get the Look – Chanel your inner rock chic.