Remembering Prince: The Gender-Blurring Chameleon Leaves Behind a Powerful Visual Legacy

This afternoon it was confirmed that Prince, born Prince Rogers Nelson, died at his Paisley Park residence in Minnesota. The singer was 57 years old and 5 feet and 2 inches tall—details that seem much too mundane for the man who once changed his name to a symbol in defiance of a dispute with his record label.

Seemingly raceless, sexless, ageless, and larger than life, it was Prince who explained this indefinable quality best when he sang, “I’m not a woman, I’m not a man/I am something that you’ll never understand” in the opening lines of his Billboard Top 10 1984 single “I Would Die 4 U.” The lyrics are among his most memorable, in part because throughout his 35-plus-year career, Prince remained insistently impossible to categorize—a relentless force of gender-blurring sexuality, trailblazing attitude, and genre-shifting musical talent: After debuting his first album, For You, at the age of 19, his following 35 records transitioned seamlessly from R&B to funk, pop, and soul, accompanied by boundary-pushing videos, films, and carefully conceived looks that were at once vehemently masculine and feminine.

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Illustration: Gary Card

This ineffable “other” quality was perhaps best captured by Prince’s hair, which changed almost as often as his scene-stealing stage clothes. Afros came in every length and shape. The flipped-out layers of his 1979 self-titled tour seemed lifted straight from the era’s bombshells. Romantic tendrils were chosen for the apocalyptic pop single “1999,” a song that had the foresight to become an anthem with which the world would celebrate the close of the millennium 17 years later. When the ’90s rolled around, not even supermodel-worthy blowouts were off limits. Headbands made their debut in the early aughts, accompanying his signature cropped, side-swept styles. Along the way, every iteration of mustache, goatee, and soul patch was carved into his angular jawline, anchoring the singer’s enthusiasm for eyeliner and lace.

For Prince, beauty was best captured in the contradictions. Every aspect of his look and persona was a nuanced reflection of a certain intangible push-and-pull, from those pillowy lips resting atop that compact frame to the sexualized peacocking wardrobe to his nuanced lyrics about heartbreak and human nature, which came wrapped inside hedonistic, addictive, life-affirming melodies. “You better live now . . . Let’s get nuts,” he sings in “Let’s Go Crazy,” the inclusive ’80s paean that seems to invite everyone to join in defying life’s brevity. With each visual permutation—and there were many (“I’ve gone through a lot of changes,” Prince himself admitted)—an adherence to social conventions was entirely disregarded, but also beside the point. “A strong spirit transcends rules,” said Prince. And a true artist is never afraid to change.

 

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