The iconic album cover artwork for Roxy Music’s albums is legendary.

It conjures the visual style of classic pinups and high fashion magazines, featuring

stunning glamour shots of beautiful models.

Here is the story of all the Roxy cover girls…

Roxy Music’s singer, Bryan Ferry was a student of painter (and some say, the actual progenitor of Pop-art) Richard Hamilton at Newcastle University. Hamilton created the stark, minimalist cover of The Beatles (the white album in 1968). It followed up, and strikingly contrasted Sgt. Pepper‘s psychedelic cover bursting with color.

Hamilton’s philosophy was, “Pop Art should be popular, transient, expendable, low-cost, mass-produced, young, witty, sexy, gimmicky, glamorous and big business.” According to Bryan Ferry, “Most LP covers of the time (1960s and 1970s) had the group standing in an alleyway, looking very sullen and moody.” The Roxy Music covers changed all of that.

Roxy’s artistic dream team consisted of fashion designer Antony Price, photographer Karl Stoecker, art director Nicholas Deville and PR man Simon Puxley. Together with Ferry’s input, they created Roxy’s gorgeous album cover art.

Roxy Music 1972

Roxy Music’s debut album and its infamous cover artwork were apparently completed before the group signed with Island Records. Island boss Chris Blackwell at first seemed unimpressed with the band, but when he glanced at the album cover images at Island’s offices, he said, “Looks great! Have we got them signed yet?” The band signed with Island a few days later. Roxy’s first LP was released in June to good reviews and was a major success. It reached No.10 on the UK album chart in September 1972.

The first Roxy cover gatefold model was Kari-Ann Muller. She came to London from Cornwall aged 18. Her career was at its peak when her agent set her up with the Roxy Music shoot. Kari-Ann was the original Roxy Girl. She’s one of the few models who didn’t date Bryan Ferry.

Kari-Ann: “It was very glamorous, very sexy, or at least I felt that way. “It was very … ice-creamy, in a way. The colours remind me of a marshmallow, like something really delicious. Fleshy, in a word” Someone to be eaten? “No! I felt like I could eat somebody up myself. I felt strong enough to take someone on.”

In 1974 Kari-Ann appeared on Mott The Hoople’s The Hoople album cover. The photographer, Karl Stoecker also shot the two Kimono clad geishas on the cover of the Sparks album Kimono My House the same year. Muller also appeared in Bryan Ferry’s video for “You Go To My Head” from his solo album Let’s Stick Together in 1975. (Her Roxy cover hangs over the fireplace in the video).

Duffy shot Muller for the 1973 Pirelli calendar. Her legs and torso were airbrushed in the same fashion as Bowie’s on his Aladdin Sane album’s gatefold artwork the same year.

Muller admits the assignment had no drastic effect on her career. She landed parts in the Joan Collins trashflick The Bitch and George Lazenby’s only Bond film, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, before giving birth to two boys. She later worked at the Black Theatre Of Brixton where she met Chris “Brother Of Mick” Jagger, now her second husband. She carried on fashion modelling, had two more boys and juggled full-time motherhood with kindergarten teaching and studying yoga.

The image itself, she explains, was created by herself and Price: “He did the hair and dress and I just got out there and did what I felt. How would I describe it? It was very glamorous, very sexy, or at least I felt that way. “It was very … ice-creamy, in a way. The colours remind me of a marshmallow, like something really delicious. Fleshy, in a word” Someone to be eaten? “No! I felt like I could eat somebody up myself. I felt strong enough to take someone on.”

For Your Pleasure 1973

Amanda Lear was the cover model on Roxy Music’s For Your Pleasure.  Not only did she model for Paco Rabanne, Yves Saint Laurent, Chanel, Mary Quant and Ossie Clark – Amanda was the confidante, protegée and mistress of the Spanish painter Salvador Dali. Amanda was romantically linked to Brian Jones, in the Rolling Stones song “Miss Amanda Jones” on their 1967 album Between the Buttons.

In 1973, Amanda posed in a skin-tight black leather dress (an Antony Price design) leading a black panther on a leash on the cover of For Your Pleasure. Amanda recalls that it was a tribute to the tall, cool blondes in Hitchcock films, particularly Kim Novak in Vertigo. The cover was shot by Karl Stoecker. The backdrop is actually an image of Las Vegas. Bryan is dressed in a chauffer’s uniform – another Price design, leaning on a Cadillac on the back cover.

After her engagement to Bryan Ferry ended, Amanda had an affair with David Bowie, and was the emcee of his 1980 Floor Show in 1973. In 1975 she became a disco singer. In 1977 she posed nude for Playboy. Despite modeling nude, there are rumors that Amanda was born a man by the name of Alain Tapp and that she is a transsexual. Joanna Lumley, who plays Patsy Stone in the comedy Absolutely Fabulous, has confirmed repeatedly that the character Patsy Stone was loosely based on the mysterious life story of Amanda Lear.

Cover concept: Bryan Ferry. Art Direction: Nicholas De ville. Artwork: CCS. Wardrobe, make-up: Antony Price. Hair: Smile.

Stranded 1973

Playboy Playmate Marilyn Cole appeared on the third album cover, Stranded. She was a Playboy bunny in London in 1972 – 1973. Marilyn married the president of Playboy Enterprises, Victor Lownes in 1984. We are to wonder how this city woman arrived in the jungle. A plane crash perhaps? Her makeup was by Pierre LaRoche who also styled The Rocky Horror Picture Show, David Bowie, Mick and Bianca Jagger. Some photos during the shoot included Bryan Ferry lying with her, but not as ravaged. His blue eye shadow is fully intact!

The fourth Roxy Music album, Country Life, was titled in parody of the popular British magazine of the same name. It was also influenced by the seedy Christine Keeler showgirl/government scandal of 1963. (Christine Keeler actually appears alongside Mandy Smith in the promotion video for Bryan Ferry’s 1987 single Kiss and Tell.) The cover photo featured two German models that Bryan had met in Portugal; Constanze Karoli (sister of Michael Karoli of Can) and his girlfriend Eveline Grunwald. They are wearing semi-transparent lingerie, standing in front of a pine bush. In America, the album was sold in an opaque plastic wrapper when retailers refused to display the cover. Later, an alternate cover featuring just a shot of the foliage was used. According to Antony Price, The girls are meant to be fashion models that have run away from an estate, caught in the headlights of a car.

The girls in 2020

Siren 1975

The most famous Roxy model is Jerry Hall – one of the original 1970s supermodels.  She began her modeling career in Paris, where she was the roommate of model, singer and actress Grace Jones. In 1975 she appeared, in the guise of a mermaid, on the cover of Siren. Her relationship with Ferry continued, and she also appeared in the video for his 1976 solo hit ‘Let’s Stick Together’.

By 1977, Hall had been on 40 magazine covers including Italian Vogue and Cosmopolitan. That same year, she met Mick Jagger at a dinner party, for whom she would eventually leave Bryan Ferry. The Siren album cover was shot in Anglesey North Wales, near South Stack lighthouse. The tower in the background atop the cliffs is known as Ellen’s Tower.

The shoot was done in a rough green sea. Jerry wore blue body makeup, and a blue filter was used for the overall affect.

Antony Price on styling Jerry Hall for the cover of Siren:

“I was inspired by Marvel Comics. I used the wings from the character Sub-Mariner, and his wife, Lady Dorma, who is pale blue, with auburn hair. They both have winged ankles … we put the fins on the ankles.”  – nightmag.com

Female models are substituted by mannequins on Mainfesto. Famous shop mannequin maker Adel Rootstein was commissioned for the shoot. Kari Ann, Roxy’s first album cover girl was actually the model for some of the mannequins. You can obviously tell which ones resemble her. The twins in the background are actually real people – Roxy Music fans who travelled extensively to see the band perform. The picture disc version of the album featured naked mannequins, as did the picture sleeve singles. The typography, as well as the album’s title, were inspired by the first edition of Wyndham Lewis’ iterary magazine BLAST.

Concept: Bryan Ferry. Designer: Antony Price

Flesh + Blood features three blonde warrior nymphs (Roslyn Ashley Bolton, Shelley Mann and Aimee Stephenson) preparing to throw Olympic javelins. They were unknown models hired to portray young high school athletes.

Avalon 1982

Bryan Ferry’s girlfriend (and soon-to-be wife) Lucy Helmore appeared on the cover of Avalon, wearing a medieval helmet and carrying a falcon, evoking King Arthur’s last journey to the mysterious land of  Avalon, his final resting place. The photograph was shot in Ireland on a lake at the home of Lucy’s parents. Although it looks like sunset, the photo was actually taken at dawn on a lake at Helmore’s parents’ house in Ireland,

Model and socialite Lucy Helmore married Bryan Ferry in 1982 at the age of 22. Bryan was 14 years her senior. They were divorced in 2003. They have four sons; Otis, Isaac, Tara and Merlin.

Lucy died at age 58 of ,a self-inflicted gunshot wound in her brother’s B&B in Ireland after a long battle with depression on July 23, 2018.

Olympia 2010

Kate Moss appears on the cover of Bryan Ferry’s 2010 solo album, Olympia. The photograph is based on Edouard Manet’s 1863 painting titled Olympia.  In Country Life magazine (November 24, 2010)  Bryan Ferry cites Manet’s 1863 work as his favorite painting.