Jagger, Jade

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Jade Jagger

Jewelry designer

Born Jade Jezebel Jagger, October 21, 1971, in Paris, France; daughter of Mick (a musician) and Bianca Jagger; children: Assisi (daughter), Amba (daughter). Education: Studied art history in Florence, Italy.

Addresses: Office—Garrard & Co., 133 Spring St., 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10012.

Career

Founded jewelry company, Jade, Inc., 1997; named creative director of Garrard, 2001.

Sidelights

Jade Jagger has led a suitably iconoclastic life as befits the daughter of Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger. Yet she has also forged a career as a successful jewelry designer who serves as the creative director for Garrard, the haute London jewelers. The company, thought to be the world's oldest luxury brand, hired the unmarried, Ibiza-dwelling mother of two for what Shane Watson of London's Sunday Times called "her particular flavour of boho bling."

Jagger's very arrival in 1971 was a major international media event. She was born in Paris, France, that October, just a few months after her father wed Nicaraguan beauty Bianca Perez Moreno de Macias. The Stones were at the peak of their fame at the time, and the couple was reportedly already suffering marital issues as a result of lifestyle excesses. Their new daughter went unnamed for two days before they decided on "Jade," because as her father told a reporter, "she is very precious and quite, quite perfect," according to Christopher Andersen's Jagger Unauthorized.

Jagger spent her first few years shuttling between her parents' homes in the south of France, New York City, Los Angeles, and London. Though her father was often away on tour or otherwise involved in the business of being a rock star, he was said to have doted on her when she was with him. Jagger saw little of her mother, either, by most accounts, and was often left in the care of nannies. As her daughter grew into a little girl, Bianca Jagger was gaining a reputation as a style-setter and charter member of the jet set, and was regularly photographed at parties and events on both sides of the Atlantic. When Jagger's parents were together, having a child around failed to curb their routine. Parties were the norm, and Jagger grew into a worldly child. The artist Andy Warhol was fascinated by her, according to Andersen's book. "I love Mick and Bianca, but Jade's more my speed," Warhol once said. "I taught her how to color and she taught me how to play Monopoly. She was four and I was forty-four. Mick was jealous. He said I was a bad influence because I gave her champagne."

Jagger's parents divorced by the time she was nine, after an acrimonious financial battle. Custody was awarded to her mother, and her father eventually went on to have several more children with model Jerry Hall. Her mother, meanwhile, became a denizen of New York's famed Studio 54, and once famously entered the storied disco for her thirtieth birthday party astride a white stallion. Jagger's father reportedly removed her from the Spence School in Manhattan when she was 14, worried about the distractions that New York City posed for a teenager. She was installed in an English boarding school outside of London, and her father allegedly insisted upon meeting anyone she dated. Not surprisingly, she chafed at such strictness coming from a parent who had been associated with the worst of rock 'n' roll excesses. In 1988, she was ejected from her $11,000-a-year English school when she was discovered climbing out of room in order to meet her 21-year-old boyfriend, the heir to a British raincoat fortune.

Jagger's father kept watch on her at his Loire Valley chateau before letting her travel to Florence, Italy, to take an art-history course. On the plane, she met Piers Jackson, an art student, and the two became romantically involved. In July of 1992, she gave birth to a daughter, Assisi, followed three years later by a second daughter, whom they named Amba. But Jagger had spoken publicly of her disdain for the institution of marriage, and left Jackson around 1996. She settled on the Spanish resort island of Ibiza, renowned for its heady nightlife, and became involved with another artist, Euan McDonald. For a time, she also dated the great-grandson of a former British prime minister.

Jagger was drawn into jewelry design after serving as an unofficial muse to British designer Matthew Williamson. She began designing her own line of jewelry, and formed a company, Jade, Inc., in 1997. Her Eastern-inspired pieces became a favorite of celebrities and the fashion crowd. After four years in business, Jagger was offered a plum job as creative director for Garrard, a venerable London firm dating back to 1722. It had been the crown jeweler to the British royal family for decades, fashioning tiaras and items like Princess Diana's engagement ring. The company had recently been acquired—along with the clothier Asprey, its sister company—by two Canadian retail moguls, who were interested in making it into a hot new luxury brand.

Jagger does not serve as Garrard's sole designer, but instead works with legendary names in the business, including Omar Torres, who was with Van Cleef & Arpels and Bulgari for decades prior. She was eager to give its lines a new verve, but would not be trouncing tradition entirely. "Garrard will be based on classic foundations because this fantastic old brand made some of the most elaborate pieces ever," she said in an interview with WWD's James Fallon. "The jewelry Garrard made for the Queen is outrageous and very avant-garde."

Jagger, whose contract was renewed in 2003 for another two years, approves every line of jewelry the company sells. She also had a say in the design of the Garrard flagship store in London, which features a wall of solid silver and sharkskin display cases. Back home in Ibiza, however, she keeps goats on the property and hangs her laundry on the line to dry. She also has a home in the Kensal Rise area of north London, which her father reportedly bought for her. Disavowing any hints that she has been spoiled by her immensely rich parent, Jagger says she works simply because she has to, she told London's Guardian newspaper—and rumors that her father is notoriously frugal with his money seem to bear that out. "We don't have a Jagger salary, you know," she told the paper's Jess Cartner-Morley. "Anyway, what self-respecting 30-year-old would want to be supported by her father, even if he would do it?"