Fashion Brief
Even among the attention-seeking and glittery hordes in any garden variety fashion show, L’Wren Scott was hard to miss, even while she sought no notice.
Of course there was the height, all 1.93m (6ft 4in) of her, which she wore with languid ease, neither stooping nor overplaying it. Her looks were like something out of a fairytale, long after she had quit modelling – all black hair, white skin and red lips.
And then there was her boyfriend, Mick Jagger, always happy to pose for the paps at the show and grin like a satyr, while she towered over him, looking neither bored nor excited by the flashbulbs, just faintly amused. If journalists approached her for a quote, she would always answer patiently in her strong American accent, and she was happy to give interviews to promote her business.
But she never looked as if she was relishing the added attention her love life brought her personally, as some partners of celebrities do. She looked, to be honest, like she just wanted to get back to work.
Just as her romantic relationship brought her newfound attention in life, so it will do again in death, perhaps even more so. But Scott was a successful designer and stylist in her own right, long before Jagger turned up in her life, and he knew this better than most.
He happily supported her work, gamely turning up to her shows and chatting with starstruck editors, and doing the occasional double interview with her in fashion magazines. She, in turn, encouraged him to have a bit more fun, taking a photograph of him in their yurt at Glastonbury that they then posted on social media.
Following a youthful career in modelling after being spotted by the legendary photographer Bruce Weber, she moved into styling – working with starry names such as Sarah Jessica Parker and Penélope Cruz, then costume design, and finally launched her own label in 2006. Her look was – unusually for a relatively new designer – immediately distinctive: body-fitted long skirts and dresses, Victorian detailing, frequent plays on white and black and unashamed glamour. Far from being influenced by her glitzy boyfriend, he took influence from her, having her style and dress him for tours and nights out. “He’s sort of like a peacock, really,” Scott told WWD while styling him for a tour in 2012.
Scott always looked like the calm sensible centre in Jagger’s world, but also in the fashion world, one totally unfussed by all the buzzing around her. But Scott also knew how to wear a costume. In an interview in 2011 with Harper’s Bazaar she mused about female celebrities: “You’ll see the most perfect person and you are like, God, she’s, like, perfect. And then she’ll tell you everything that’s not perfect. Everyone has their own special set of problems – in their own minds.”
