Patti Smith: Style Icon

"Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine"

So far I've listed the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo and American musician Stevie Nicks amongst my style icons. Next up is American singer/song writer, poet, artist and writer Patti Smith. Even though they are each so different, it's their sense of identity that intrigues me. All of them are extremely strong women who survived many hardships using their art as a vehicle to carry them through their ups and downs. Their style was yet another mode of expression for these innately creative women.

Patti Smith's style is one that evolved over time, when she was young she never considered herself beautiful because of her tall and square boyish frame which is now the main template for any fashion model. She felt awkward and shy. When she arrived in New York from Chicago in the early 1970s she soon hooked up with her first love, the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, who was also lost and on the run from life, and like Patti traveling there in search of some kind of fatalistic dream. The reality was that they both spent some time sleeping on  streets and in parks, desperately trying to survive. They eventually found their place amongst the bohemian clientele at the famous Chelsea Hotel. There they rubbed shoulders with up and coming musicians, writers and artists.

It was an experience that helped Patti find herself first and foremost as a poet, then later as a performer and musician. Her hair style which she chopped herself was influenced by Keith Richards from the Rolling Stones. Her clothes were collected from thrift stores and bizarres, however they hung on her square frame effortlessly. She has always been associated with an androgynous look, from the portrait of her taken by Robert on the cover of her debut album 'Horses'. She always loved to experiment and was never scared of how people would judge her appearance. Perhaps after a long time of feeling like a misfit and an outsider she felt that she belonged more within the male dominated punk rock scene in 1970s New York. She came out of her shell and fused poetry, performance art and music in her electrical stage performances. She was and still is undoubtedly a free spirit channeling her creative expression through her art and her very own distinctive identity.

Wilderness by Patti Smith

Do animals make a human cry
when their loved one staggers
fowled dragged down
the blue veined river

Does the female wail
miming the wolf of suffering
do lilies trumpet the pup
plucked for skin and skein

Do animals cry like humans
as I having lost you
yowled flagged
curled in a ball

This is how
we beat the icy field
shoeless and empty handed
hardly human at all

Negotiating a wilderness
we have yet to know
this is where time stops
and we have none to go 

At 66, Patti is still writing, she recently published a biography called 'Just Kids' about her early years in New York and her complex and intense relationship with Robert whom she has described as "the artist of my life". She is also still performing live with her band, they will be touring Europe in 2013 to promote her newest album, 'Banga' (Believe or explode), which was released in early June 2012 with critical acclaim.