Duran Duran's Simon Le Bon, 67, addresses tweakments, dyeing his hair and wearing budgie smugglers

Duran Duran's Simon Le Bon, 67, addresses tweakments, dyeing his hair and wearing budgie smugglers Duran Duran's Simon Le Bon is a style icon and the voice behind some of the best British pop songs of all time. He tells the Mirror of fashion faux pas and his wife's great advice Pioneers of the New Romantic movement, Duran Duran dominated the music scene in the 1980s, with their danceable hits and flamboyant fashion. Dapper front man Simon Le Bon led the way, with many memorable style moments - epitomised by the iconic trilby hat worn in their Hungry Like the Wolf video. Now, as they prepare to join music legends from Nile Rogers and Chic to Scissor Sisters, for the British Summer Time (BST) gig on Hyde Park on July 5, he has revealed his style icons. He says: "The late Duke of Edinburgh was immaculate. David Bowie, I think, was an incredible style icon. Who else? Well, the punks. I want to say Johnny Rotten, but I'm really thinking Sid Vicious. I also love Patti Smith." Just 22 when he auditioned for Duran Duran in 1980, then an aspiring punk, he was recommended by his girlfriend Fiona Kemp, who waited on tables at Birmingham's Rum Runner club, where the band rehearsed. Simon recalls: "I wore this pair of Johnson and Johnson Chelsea boots. They were pearlescent pink and I wore burgundy coloured leopard skin print drain pipes. "I don't remember what shirt I wore, but I was wearing my grandmother's brown suede short jacket. It wasn't bomber length. It was just a bit longer than that. So it had a little waist and it had a little belt, which I made into a half belt by tying it up at the back. I was rocking it with a pair of wraparound shades I found in an opticians in Cambridge." A drama and theatre arts student at Birmingham University, Simon knew he would be judged on his look, after a pal told him Duran Duran were “very stylish people’". Simon was hired - joining bandmates Nick Rhodes, Andy Taylor, John Taylor and Roger Taylor and going on to sell more than 100 million records worldwide and be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Launching a European and UK tour on June 19, to support their new single Free to Love, featuring Nile Rodgers, it’s now 46 years since Simon joined Duran Duran. But he isn’t planning any drastic action to hold back the years. He says: "Where am I with ageing? I don't like it. Tweakments, hair dye? I think that's fine. I did for a while keep Just For Men in business.” Of cosmetic procedures, he continues: “A lot of people go way over the edge.” And while he likes tattoos, he says: “There's nothing I've ever seen that I want to live with for the rest of my life." Married to supermodel Yasmin Le Bon since 1985, the couple have three daughters - Tallulah, 31, Amber, 36, and Saffron, 34. And Simon, who lives in Putney, south west London, says his wife makes many of his style choices. He says: "I do one video or one photo shoot and I get clothes for a year from that. I take style advice from her [Yasmin] 100%.” Appearing in a Persil washing powder advert as the mucky kid, whose top needed a wash when he was six, Simon tells British fashion designer Amanda Wakeley on her Style DNA podcast. Growing up with his two brothers and his parents, John and Anne-Marie, in Bushey, Hertfordshire, he says his mum taught him to sew. He recalls: “I sewed because I was reading these books about The Vikings. They used to sew, because they had to repair their clothes and sails. The very first thing I sewed on, I had this camouflage beanie hat and I found a CND patch. And I sewed the patch onto the front of the hat. Then I had a patch on my arm which said ‘super cock.’ It was like a bird pulling its shirt open with a big S underneath it. And it was a cockerel, obviously, a male chicken!” As a kid, Simon loved dressing up - his favourite costumes being a cowboy, a policeman and a jockey outfit. And his love of costumes continued in Duran Duran, where the lads pioneered looks like rolling up their jacket sleeves. Simon says: "It was the 80s and we invented that. Although the rolled up jacket sleeves made it on to Miami Vice, it was Andy Taylor who started it. "One night on stage he said ‘I can't play guitar with this stuff flopping around me,’ so he rolled his sleeves up. By the end of that week, we were all doing it and [wearing] headbands." Crediting drummer Roger Taylor with adopting the headband look, Simon says: "We were playing at Newcastle City Hall and it was a really hot day. Suddenly, Roger goes, "’ can't, I'm going to get so wet, I'm going to be drenched’. He then took a towel, tore off a strip of it and tied it around his head. And he said, ‘that's going to make it so much better for me". I looked at it, I thought, ‘that's really cool in a sort of Jimi Hendrix sort of way.’" But not everything looks great in retrospect. Simon laughs: “Regrets, I've had a few. I mean, I look back at my haircuts and think, ‘my God, look at that mullet.’ I was King Mullet for quite a while, until the radio presenter Pat Sharp and Peter Stringfellow took my crown” Several decades later, looking after his voice, not his image, is Simon’s first concern when he’s working, after he was forced to end his 2011 summer tour early, when he injured his vocal cords. He says: "When we used to do five shows a week, I wouldn't be able to keep my vocal cords in proper shape. Eventually, there would be a point where I'd have no voice at all. And the calculation was, ‘can we get to the end of the tour before that happens?’” His caution came after he tore a vocal cord and suffered severe throat ulceration back in 1993. He recalls: “We were on stage in the Netherlands, in Rotterdam, and it [his voice] just went. I really couldn't hit the notes. It was very traumatic. But I knew it was happening." Turning to renowned speech and language therapist Dr Ruth Epstein for help, Simon still listens to her before he goes on stage. He says: "I do have a proper 12 minute warm up process. I put earphones in and I listen to the amazing Ruth. She gave me this warm up routine. I do it before every show. It's part of my getting on the runway, as is putting on the clothes, putting on the makeup, doing the hair. Then you walk on stage and there is this real frisson. “ Awarded an MBE by King Charles in 2024, Simon admits to being more reserved than he was when Duran Duran launched. He says: "I wore formal morning dress when I picked up my MBE.” Also awarded three Grammys - one of which he has lost - a Brit award, an MTV Moon Man, and three Ivor Novello awards for songwriting, Simon’s talent has been widely recognised. Maybe that’s why he is less concerned about high fashion. He laughs: “Yasmin has this contract with George at Asda. I went online and found all these fantastic men's joggers. I bought three pairs. They're only £18 a pair. That was an impulse buy. I love them.” And when it comes to smalls and bathers, he says: “Budgie smugglers every time. Them birds gotta be on show!” As for nightwear, he adds: What do I wear in bed? It is what I don't wear." *Duran Duran headline British Summer Time at Hyde Park, London, on Sunday July 5 with support from Nile Rodgers and The Scissor Sisters. For tickets visit www.bst-hydepark.com