We Like Your Style: Jem

Forget Madonna’s conical bustier, and MJ’s single white glove: for the quintessential icon of ‘80s rock star style, say it with me: Jem. Statuesque, with a wild crop of pink hair layered to perfection, Jem rocked the stage in stilettos, top hat and tails, big cuffs and high collars, and aubergine jumpsuits. She was all sharp clean lines and big colours: femininity and brazen animalism.

Her all-girl band, The Holograms, backed Jem up on guitars, a keyboard, and set of synth drums (hot). When they weren’t headlining in heels and leopard print jumpsuits with lightning bolt shaped instruments and elaborate, futuristic badass makeup designs, The Holograms moonlighted as joint benefactors of a foster home for girls. Jem and her crew were philanthropic before adopted ethnic babies succeeded the handbag dog as fashionable lifestyle accessories. While Madonna was still humping herself on stage, Jem and The Holograms were trailblazers of humanitarianism and élan.

Jem was also a computer genius, a cultural mastermind, a secret agent and CEO of her own record company. Like any good renaissance woman, Jem fit the part in animated perfection, from her lime green stockings with matching pumps and microphone, to her silken fitted blazers atop narrow pinstriped cigarette pants.

While the girls in CSS were still crawling about in baby-sized zip-up leotards, The Holograms were the original, quintessential girl rockers. A classy dame with her star-spangled ear to the ground, Jem set a high, top-hatted bar for rockstar chic.