More Than The Image

The crowd (which included Liza Minelli, Halston, Calvin Klein, and the future Mrs. Jagger, model Jerry Hall) was divided between those who gasped and applauded, and those who, flossing patented New York jadedness, didn’t give a second glance. Photos of the moment raced around the globe, circulating at a pace that prefigured “virality.” In their wake, one of the defining images and moments of 1970s pop culture was born. 

Rock & roll royalty by virtue of her marriage to Mick Jagger, Bianca was always much more than the arm-candy spouse of a rock star and darling of the paparazzi. A born fashionista equally at home in slinky beaded gowns and tailored menswear, she not only held her own alongside her globally famous spouse, she often outshone him. 

A favorite photography subject of Andy Warhol, who put her on the cover of Interview magazine three times, her magnetism also landed her covers for Vogue, Cosmopolitan, People, and several other top magazines around the world. (She sued the Warhol estate after the 1989 publication of The Andy Warhol Diaries, saying she didn’t believe the unflattering portrait of her in the book was even written by him. She won the lawsuit.) 

Her nightlife escapades became tabloid staples and she was frequently photographed laughing or dancing alongside the likes of David Bowie, Halston, Liza Minnelli, Elizabeth Taylor, and Michael Jackson. With looks that rivaled supermodels of the day, she was most famously photographed wearing her signature tailored white Yves Saint Laurent suits, her thick, immaculately styled hair falling to the shoulders of the jacket. Often a large white hat stylishly capped it all. (Zendaya’s 2025 Met Gala getup was a tip of the hat to Bianca’s trademarked look.) 

But while she was one of the premiere style icons of the ‘70s, she was also whip smart, seriously committed to global politics long before myth-making cameras fell in love with her. But no icon of glamor endures on glamor alone. There has to be some grounding component, even if it’s only in subtext. With Bianca Jagger, there was never a need to dig for substance. 

From an early age she championed the political underdog, her convictions extending far beyond the camera’s frame. Born in Managua, Nicaragua to a successful businessman and housewife (who divorced when she was ten), intellectually gifted Bianca moved to France at the age of seventeen to study political science at the Paris Institute of Political Studies after winning a scholarship. Her childhood in Nicaragua under the bloody and brutal dictatorship of the Somoza regime sparked her interest in politics and is at the root of her lifelong activism. For over half a century she’s been a tireless advocate for environmental issues, human rights, and animal rights, and has won countless awards for her activism.

Now a glamorous but cerebral grandmother of two, Jagger continues to cut a stylish, compelling figure while travelling the world to speak on behalf of those whose voices have been muted or stolen. According to the political advocacy organization Right Livelihood, which awarded Jagger a Laureate in 2004, “In the 1990s, Jagger evacuated 22 children from the worst war zones in Bosnia. Mohamed Ribic, a boy 8 years old, lived with her in New York for a year after a successful heart operation before returning to his parents. In 1993, Jagger went to the former Yugoslavia to document the mass rape of Bosnian women by Serbian forces as part of a campaign of ethnic cleansing. For many years she campaigned to stop the genocide in Bosnia and make the perpetrators accountable before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Her reports on the war crimes against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo contributed to the international community decision to intervene and stop the genocide.” And that’s just a partial list of her global activism.

Anyone who doubts the seriousness of her politics or believes they weren’t always present, even in her high glam days, would be greatly mistaken. She proved that in 2015, when she wrote a letter to the Financial Times after they published an interview with erstwhile Hollywood bigwig Barry Diller who’d made some outrageous claims about that night in 1977 when Jagger and the white horse made international news for their Studio 54 appearance. Jagger, reminding us she’s a longtime animal rights activist, begins by taking aim at Diller’s assertion that she’d ridden the horse down the sidewalk and right into the club. Note the subtle, droll humor in the missive.

“I would like to set the record straight,” she begins. “Mick Jagger and I walked into Studio 54. Steve Rubell [Studio 54’s co-founder] had apparently seen a picture in a magazine of me riding a white horse in Nicaragua and he thought it would be a clever idea to bring a horse to the club as a birthday surprise for me. It was a beautiful white horse that reminded me of mine, and I made the foolish decision to get on it for a few minutes. The photographed image went around the world, giving rise to the fable – that I arrived at Studio 54 on a white horse. No doubt you will agree with me that it is one thing to, on the spur of the moment, get on a horse in a nightclub, but it is quite another to ride in on one. I find the insinuation that I would ride a horse into a nightclub offensive. Hopefully this letter will finally put this Studio 54 fable out to pasture.”

Now, decades removed from the fevered nights that first made her an icon, Jagger remains a figure of enduring presence—glamorous, yes, but also deliberate, articulate, and unyielding. She continues to travel the world, speaking on behalf of those whose voices have been suppressed or erased.