Bianca Jagger Knows the Secret to Aging Gracefully

It’s safe to say Bianca Jagger has led a very full life. The style icon, born Blanca Pérez-Mora Macías in Managua, Nicaragua, has been cemented in the public imagination as one of the world’s most fabulous women. But the fashion model and human rights defender has remained booked and busy since her heyday as a famed ’70s socialite.

Currently, she serves as the chair of her Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation. She’s also a member of the executive director’s leadership council of Amnesty International U.S., a goodwill ambassador to the Council of Europe, and a trustee of the Amazon Charitable Trust. The latter cause seems to capture Jagger’s spirit the most. Speaking from her home in the U.K., Jagger tells W about her early memories of walking through the rainforest with her mother in her home country as a child, and how the scent of the wild orchids there permanently influenced her relationship with fragrance.

Now Jagger is the latest star of YSL Beauty’s very feminine Libre Flowers & Flames perfume, which has notes of coco palm tree flower, lily, orange blossom, and vanilla. The partnership with YSL Beauty is a natural one—fashion fans will recall the famous Yves Saint Laurent tailored two-piece bridal suit she wore to marry Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger in a Saint-Tropez courthouse in 1971. Below, Bianca Jagger reflects on the key to aging well, the qualities that make a woman beautiful, and what her mother taught her about perfume.

Is there a beauty product that you can’t live without?

Red lipstick. I combine different pencils and lipsticks to get the color I like.

What is your favorite form of self-care?

I’m a great believer in mens sana in corpore sano [a healthy mind in a healthy body], so I try to exercise almost daily. Whatever we do, how we eat, how we live, whether we exercise or not—it all reflects on how you look. I never had plastic surgery, so I have to be very careful about how I age. Cleaning your makeup off before going to bed is critical. Also, I’m a pescatarian. I don’t eat meat. I don’t really drink. I don’t smoke. Maybe that’s too strict, but I think that at my age, and even before, your health is a reflection of how you live.

Do you have a favorite form of exercise?

I do a combination of Pilates, yoga, and a little bit of weights. I used to go to the gym before the pandemic. I miss it, and I would love to go back and swim. I hope I will have the courage to face being in an enclosure of a gym. But I continue to do my exercises on my own. People laugh because I have so much equipment in my house that it’s almost like a gym.

Have you always been health-conscious?

Yes, especially since I became pregnant [with daughter Jade, in 1971]. That’s when I decided to give up eating meat. Throughout my life, I’ve always believed in the effect exercise has on your life, on your mental capacity, and on your moods. It’s one of the best things for depression.

What is the best beauty advice that you’ve ever received, and who was it from?

My mom. Everything in my routine, how to clean my face, she taught me. She was pale-skinned with auburn hair, and I was brunette—we’re completely different. But she was a role model for me, and what she taught me was important in my life.

Who is your ultimate beauty icon?

Beauty and brains are really important. Beauty is very subjective, and it comes from within. I admire women who have been great role models throughout my life. I think about Hedy Lamarr, who was a great beauty and also a really brilliant woman. Cate Blanchett is one of them. There are wonderful women who maybe wouldn’t fit the canon of what we consider to be beautiful, but because of their strength and their empowerment, they are. Eleanor Roosevelt, for example, may not be regarded by many people as beautiful, but to me she was a beautiful, extraordinary woman who set the stage for other women to be leaders and to make tremendous changes for human rights.

What is your earliest memory of a fragrance?

My first encounter with fragrance was walking in the rainforest with my mother and discovering wildflowers, especially wild orchids. When you buy them here in the U.K., or in the U.S., they don’t have that extraordinary scent they have when you are in the rainforest. The way my mother used fragrances was important to me as well. Through her, I understood the importance of fragrances and perfumes, and what it gives you when you wear them.

Why is the YSL Libre fragrance especially meaningful to you?

The first thing was the name of the fragrance, Libre, which means freedom, or free, in English and in Spanish. To be associated with that name was very attractive to me. I feel like a free woman when I wear it.