Just 48 hours before the Rolling Stones kick off their “50 & Counting: The Rolling Stones Live” tour, Mick Jagger and his longtime paramour and stylist L’Wren Scott sit down for their first ever joint interview to talk about clothing, tailoring, and how it all plays into the musical performance scene, as they put the final touches on his wardrobe for the tour.
While Mick Jagger has very clear ideas about how he wants to look onstage, he’s like any other man out there when it comes to one aspect of dressing. “Men aren’t interested in clothes that look amazing but are fantastically uncomfortable to wear. We’re not into pain — we’re into comfort,” says Jagger with his big grin.
Mick and L’Wren’s conversations of the day range from a debate over the merits of two Stephen Jones hats, and exactly how roomy a black-and-white patterned jacket needs to be for the famously athletic Jagger to move properly onstage. “When you’re onstage [the costumes] have to fit, and they have to be — for me —glamorous,” Jagger says. “They have to fit in with the show. If you’re doing a small club like we did the other week [in Paris], you don’t want to dress up like a popinjay. If you’re playing in a really big stadium, you want to be in superbright colors, otherwise you just get lost. But if you’re in an arena that’s really well-lit, like we’re going to be in the next few shows, you don’t have to be looking like a Day-Glo.”
Mick says silhouette onstage has always been important of the show: “I’ve always done a kind of skinny silhouette because I am skinny; I don’t have to worry about covering up fat bits! So you’ve got to emphasize your silhouette,” Mick Jagger says. “But then sometimes you want, on top of that, clothes that have movement. So I’ve always done a lot of coats influenced by riding coats of the 18th or early 19th centuries — what the French call ‘red in gote.’ I do those with a small tail. Obviously I’ve done other more mad things. I’ve done capes and things”.
Jagger explains, “I think about parts of the show. The show has a beginning, so it’s very important to make an entrance. If there’s a second act where the lights or the scene changes, it’s good to have a different [look]. I don’t get time to change my pants really. So the pants stay. So they’ve got to be supercomfy, and not cause me problems. I might change my coat or shirts”.
L’Wren Scott is passionate about costume design for maximum impact. Before launching her ready-to-wear collection, she was a celebrity stylist known for her consummate discretion — and for using clothing to empower her high-profile clients. She is well-known for her elegant silhouettes, bold colors and celebrity clientele that includes Nicole Kidman, Sarah Jessica Parker and Penélope Cruz, just to name a few.
“In a way, when you’re designing for this, you are designing for the stage persona,” Scott says. “So it’s so great when you see [the clothes] come to life and moving — it’s amazing! I’ve worked with lots of musicians — like Tina Turner — and I love when they go in front of the fitting mirror and do their thing, pose, dance. I love that moment! As you know, when Mick performs he takes things off, goes into this other world.”
However, L’Wren also admits that sometimes her job as a stylist is difficult. “The fact that you’re close with someone or friends with them can be good and bad. It’s good that you know their comfort levels, and how far you can push. But, at the same time, you need to avoid having too many emotions and feelings because you have to listen very carefully to their ideas. You have to make sure that your creation, your vision [is in tune with theirs],” she says. “Mick really has his own style, and he is quite opinionated about how he wants to look. At the end of the day, [the performer] has to feel good in it. It’s not you or I dancing and prancing out there.”
L’Wren goes on to explain that, to a large degree, color inspires the costumes. “I have my teal palette; I have my purple-violet one, I have my dark, my black-and-white,” Scott says. “You can kind of work in your moods, and then you know you’re going to have three or four acts in your show, and it’s going to change, the lighting’s going to change, the vibe’s going to change. I wanted to make a hyper-tailored, glam look that deconstructs as he performs, meaning he keeps taking clothes off, and then maybe throws on some gorilla cape made of feathers — for fun — over a T-shirt. An artist needs his options to tell his story when he is onstage. I just think you’ve got to give choices. That’s how you approach it — the artist needs options.”
In his 50 years performing, Jagger didn’t always have so many options. Examining L’Wren’s mood boards, he recalls wearing a pair of Giorgio Sant’Angelo cheesecloth trousers from the Seventies. “They were supercomfy pants,” he remembers. “It was boiling. It was really superhot on stage in the old days because the lights were very hot. These days the lights are not so hot.” He also names some of his favorite onstage outfits. “The simple Ossie Clark jumpsuit was very comfortable. But then, there were some that were super-uncomfortable because they had metal holes, and they would scar my skin! So I had to adapt those. The jumpsuit is a very comfortable garment. You zip it up, and don’t have to think about separates, and ‘Does that go with that?’” He points to a picture from a 1969 concert in Hyde Park, where he’s dressed in a billowy shirt that looks like an extra’s outfit from Franco Zeffirelli’s “Romeo and Juliet.” “It was like a shirt-waistcoat with big puffy sleeves — very comfortable. I took it off, and I was wearing a singlet.”
With the clock ticking closer to Sunday night when the tour kicked off, Jagger said he’s “quietly optimistic”. Scott noted that she will watch all the shows from her favorite place — the light booth. “It’s fun — and I’m there just in case a sequin needs sewing, or feathers need replenishing.”