Patti Smiths eye for fashion

The former rockers sartorial decisions are guided by a kind of stubborn pragmatism....

Listen to this article

00:00

1x 1.5x 1.8x

Necks craned for a glimpse of Patti Smith as she settled at her customary corner table at Da Silvano in Greenwich Village,New York. Smith was understated,even self-effacing in her mannish jacket,boater shirt and beat-up jeans. My style says Look at me,dont look at me, she said,a hint of testiness ruffling her easy composure. Its,I dont care what you think. So it was surprising to learn that her roomy gray jacket,with cuffs that unfasten at the wrist,was designed by Ann Demeulemeester,a high priestess of Parisian vanguard chic. Her jeans were Ralph Lauren. Her boots,a gift from Johnny Depp,who wore them as the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland,were the perfect fit.

She has a rarefied feel for that kind of evocative detail. That might stun her fans,who think of Smith as a gnarly rocker,thrashing and howling soulfully on stage. But Smiths look is nothing if not rehearsed. She is very aware of her style and she controls it, said Demeulemeester. Its about being conscious of who you are and using all the strength you have to communicate that.

Back in the public eye with a best-selling memoir and a series of concerts,Smith is the same deft communicator,giving no sign of the trash-talking provocateur who dropped explicit sexual references into magazine profiles when she was at the height of her career.

Story continues below this ad

The thing Ive always liked about performing, she said,is that I decide what I want to wear,whether I want to comb my hair. No one ever told me what to do,and no one tells me now. At 63,she has hung on to that resolve. In her raffish T-shirts and boy coats,in concert she is the anti-Gaga,rejecting gaudy,serial costume changes,refusing to bend with every shift in fashions wind. That constancy has made Smith a trendsetter. Smith has filled out over the years,no longer the lanky consort of Robert Mapplethorpe,the taboo-smashing photographer she memorialises in Just Kids,her coming of age tale.

Her abiding passions are reflected in her style,a thoughtful pastiche modelled on her cultural heroes. She combed shops in search of striped linen trousers that evoked Lennon because,she said,something in those pants spoke to me of myself. She likes to knot her shirts at the waist a la Ava Gardner. Her stringy mens ties are a nod to Frank Sinatra and Bob Dylan.

Steven Sebring,who followed Smith for his 2008 documentary,Patti Smith: Dream of Life,caught her surly defiance when he photographed her in a long Dior evening dress that was steamily laced up the sides. Theres a chicness about her, he said. She had the authority to pull it off.

Superstition and a kind of stubborn pragmatism guide her sartorial decisions. For tours,she said,I pack lighter than anyone else in the band. I only bring what I can wash in the sink. She makes no secret of scanning jewellery and clothing for signs and portents. Though she lost her husband,the rock guitarist Fred Smith,in 1994,she still wears her wedding bandone of my most precious possessions.

Story continues below this ad

She was told by a fawning Salvador Dali,You are like a gothic crow. Yet in the sunlight streaming from a corner window,her features were soft. I like to be comfortable, she said. Sex has never been my thing. I wanted to feel like myself.