Jade Jagger talks motherhood, design and building a matriarchal paradise in Ibiza

 

Jade Jagger is tired. She yawns through much of our interview as she potters around her 16th century villa. Perhaps she just feels relaxed in her sleepy village in Ibiza, where she spends the summer with her family. Or maybe it’s only to be expected from this daughter of rock royalty, now an international designer, who has just become a grandmother and a mother again at the age of 42. She gave birth to her third son, Ray, in June only a month after her daughter Assisi had her first child. “I think being pregnant can be quite lonely,” she ponders. “So it was great to have that companionship with Assisi. I was obviously able to help her, answer her questions, but I think we just enjoyed being close to each other.”

 

The double-pregnancy marks another extraordinary chapter in the story of the Jaggers, a sprawling, globe-trotting family of musicians, models and socialites as iconic in their own way as the Windsors. While the latter dynasty represents centuries of British tradition, the Jaggers are a reminder of its swing into cool modernity during the 60s. Her father Mick may have led the revolution as the frontman of the Rolling Stones but Jade, his only child with Nicaraguan model Bianca Jagger, was born into it. Following her parents’ divorce, she was whisked away from Chelsea to live in Manhattan with her jetsetting mother, who would drop her off at The Factory to be babysat by Andy Warhol and his pop-art acolytes. Warhol said at the time, “I like Mick and Bianca, but Jade’s more my speed. I taught her how to colour and she taught me how to play Monopoly.”

 

Jade acknowledges the impact such a unique and privileged upbringing had on her, artistically speaking. “I should hope I have developed my own style now but growing up around the pop art movement – all those incredibly creative and inspiring people – has led to some of my most iconic pieces of jewellery; designs using arrows, wings, skulls, 3D. It taught me how to use strong images and those collections are a reflection of my childhood.”

 

 

Unlike other children born into fame, she has never wavered from her path and retains a relentless entrepreneurial spirit. She speaks bluntly about her work, and insists that she wasn’t a “trust fund child”, but simply a young mother who felt she needed to provide for her children. After a brief stint studying painting in Florence, Jade started designing jewellery. She built up an impressive international clientele until she was eventually brought in-house to be the creative director of luxury jewellers Asprey & Garrard.

 

While designing and opening stores for them in London, Paris, Tokyo and Los Angeles, she developed a taste for fine furnishings, and joined the ranks of interiors firm Yoo to design a portfolio of apartments and holiday homes. Her interiors career started 10 years ago with The Jade in New York, and her designs now fill homes in Marrakech, The Cotswolds and Mumbai, where she is currently working on four towers. In between, she found time to open a Jade Jagger boutique in Notting Hill, design bottles of perfume and wine, and even created the Jagger Dagger, an ice pick of white gold and lapis lazuli, specifically designed to cork Belvedere vodka.

 

 

All the time she was raising her two daughters, Assisi and Amba, travelling between her houses in London, Ibiza and Jaipur. Did she ever feel under pressure to give them as creative an upbringing as she had? “Oh, absolutely, but it’s a simple matter of encouraging a love of visual art. And that’s not hard because children are naturally creative anyway, they love to paint and make things.” Was she ever tempted to entertain like her father? “No, I never wanted to perform. I love music, it’s always playing around the house and I used to manage music at Jezebel [Jade’s lifestyle brand]. But I like to be creative in the background. We listen to lots of disco, although I like my classical and blues. We have all generations here, so it really is a mixture.”

 

By here, she means Can Rocas, her dream house in Ibiza. It isn’t just a villa, she sharply corrects me, but a finca, a sort of medieval Spanish farmhouse. It sits in four acres of land just outside the rural village of San Joan and the view from the master bedroom overlooks the untouched valley of Portinatx – particularly stunning as the sun sets. It’s a million miles away from Jade’s cosmopolitan upbringing.

 

“I was looking for a place to bring my children up and Ibiza has a great choice of lifestyles and food. When we moved here it was quite a hippy destination but it became sophisticated, and now it has an interesting mix of people.” The house underwent its second renovation this year, but it still bears the unmistakeable Jagger stamp. Her trademark boho-stylings adorn every surface, showcasing her love of Indian silks and craftsmanship. The terrace is strewn with soft pillows and antiques, making it feel like a sun-drenched cross between the Alhambra and a country home in Sussex. The colour palette rarely strays from a blend of earthy tans, browns and oranges. “If I had to describe it,” she says, “I’d say it was a natural, comfortable, family home.”

 

 

Jade’s favourite room in the house is the newly modernized kitchen, which is a vision in gleaming copper. She even commissioned Electrolux to install its professional cooking system, Grand Cuisine, so she has access to equipment normally found in Michelin-starred restaurants, such as blast chillers and vacuum sealers. Throw in the expansive gardens outside her window, lined with almond, lemon, and olive trees, and you have a gourmet paradise. Jade says she’s an “avid cook” and perks up when she talks about her culinary experiments. “It means I can make ceviche, steak tartare and the world’s best martini, because I can chill it perfectly.” She has already opened a restaurant called The Secret Garden in Bodrom with her husband Adrian Fillary, who is also responsible for London’s Bedford & Strand. She responds coyly to suggestions that a landmark restaurant in London is on the cards: “Perhaps. It would be exciting, wouldn’t it?”

 

Her kitchen has become a hub for the Jagger clan, a central point where the generations gather for a meal. “I know it’s cheesy but I love it because it’s the place where everyone comes to eat and talk. I have a big family and I love to feed them. I suppose I am now a matriarch – but then I’ve always felt like I rule the roost.” Jade’s house, like her life, is an ongoing project. This month, she left the family retreat for New York Fashion Week to launch The NeverEnding Collection, jewellery carved from precious stones inspired by her – understandable – fascination with heritage. “I feel that the stones have a really timeless quality. I want people to pass them down as family heirlooms.”

 

She may have inherited the Jagger brand, but her design empire suggests the child who loved playing Monopoly never entirely disappeared. “I’m not a businesswoman, I’m an artist first,” she counters. “Everything I do goes back to drawing. Painting is decorating walls, jewellery is decorating the body and interiors is just applying that to property. If I had to choose one of them, it would be painting and all the places it takes me.”