Earlier this month it was announced that Sade, the British group fronted by Sade Adu that found fame in the 80s and 90s, would be inducted into the 2026 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And although the music is indisputably worthy of such a distinction, if there were a similar accolade for style, Adu would have been inducted a long time ago.

With her scraped-back hair, red lipstick, hoop earrings and penchant for simple black dresses or denim and polo necks, she has become the last word in understated – but somehow unattainable – style.

Sade haven’t released a new album since 2010, but Adu’s image is everywhere. Drake is a Sade superfan, with two tattoos of Adu on his torso, and – it was revealed this month– a 9ft sculpture of the singer in his home. The song No Ordinary Love featured in the recent series Love Story, with John F Kennedy Jr and Carolyn Bessette dancing to the song as it plays on a jukebox. And the cropped jacket, Levi’s jeans and cowboy boots Adu wore in the video for The Sweetest Taboo are included in V&A East’s inaugural exhibition, The Music is Black, which opened this month.

“Her style has endured in the same way as Katharine Hepburn’s style, or Marlene Dietrich’s,” says designer Fiona Dealey, who worked with Adu in the early 80s. “It’s very classical – sexy but elegant at the same time.”

Sade were a huge phenomenon in the mid-80s, even in the US – rare for a British band. Their debut album Diamond Life (Adu is pictured on the cover in closeup, wearing cat-like eyeliner) sold more than 4m copies there, and the follow-up, Promise (denim shirt and red lipstick) went to No 1. And Adu’s look stood out from her peers: Madonna in lace and lingerie, Whitney Houston in shoulder pads, and Cyndi Lauper in club kid maximalism.

But Adu’s style didn’t come out of nowhere, says Jacqueline Springer, the curator of The Music is Black. Sade were part of a jazz-funk scene in London that itself referred back to an earlier era, and Black jazz artists like Cab Calloway. “Looking dapper was de rigueur,” Springer says. “You would go to the Wag Club and you’d be dressed as if it was the 30s in a jazz club.”

Adu’s style developed in the spotlight – and she became the figurehead of Sade, Springer adds. “She’s projected as the group in and of itself, and with that singular emphasis comes an additional polish.” While her bandmates wore suits that more explicitly pointed to the jazz club connection, Adu’s style had an out-of-time simplicity.

But she also had a head start: before becoming a singer, Adu studied fashion design at Saint Martin’s School of Art, and worked briefly as a model. Iain R Webb, a professor of fashion at Kingston School of Art, was her classmate, and lived with her for a time. He says Adu’s style was always notable. “Even before Sade forged a career as a singer she favoured a certain understated, nonchalant look, often mixing masculine and utilitarian pieces. I remember she liked to wear gloves,” he says. “Her insouciant attitude gave her an edge – the way she dressed never looked forced or foisted upon her by stylists.” Speaking to Interview in 1988, Adu clarifies her point of view: “I like clothes,” she said. “I don’t like fashion, but I do like clothes.”

Dealey, also at Saint Martin’s, made the backless black leather dress Adu wore for an early performance at Ronnie Scott’s in 1983 (which featured in the Design Museum’s Blitz exhibition last year), another black jersey dress and the white dress worn in the video for Smooth Operator. Adu may have noticed Dealey’s similarly pared-back style: “My hair would be scraped back and I would wear red lipstick and a pair of gold earrings,” she remembers. “She trusted that I had a good eye.” Dealey says the backless dress fits into Adu’s wider style because it’s more subtle than – say – something low-cut. “From the front when she was onstage, it looked really elegant [but] when she turned around, it looked [like], if she moved her shoulder, the whole thing could fall off. It’s sexy and demure at the same time.”

Along with the influence of jazz clubs, Adu also may have been inspired by elegant Black stars that came before her. Speaking to the Financial Times last year, YouTube creator Naya Nweke made this assertion. “Think of how Dorothy Dandridge and Josephine Baker embodied glamour and representation for Black and biracial women – aspirational but also political,” she said. “Sade inherits that lineage, but she strips it back, turning it into something more minimalist, confident and modern.”

Adu’s style remains inspirational for a younger generation. River Brown is the 22-year-old founder of the @sadeaduwife TikTok account, with 365.6k followers. She describes Adu’s look as “very chic. It’s not much, but, at the same time, it’s very much [because of] the way she’s very intentional about it. It’s everything to me.” For a very online generation who have every possible style they could desire at the click of Apple Pay, style that is starkly simple and focused on a few pieces worn on repeat feels radical – like the original capsule wardrobe way before it became the subject of TikTok tutorials. Crucially, much like that other minimalist reference Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, Adu’s chosen items – a polo neck, hoop earrings and Levi’s jeans – are gettable, but with added beauty and charisma, her image remains the gold standard.

Adu’s image refracts everything from ageing to Black beauty and biraciality, says Springer. “There’s a number of things that we’re throwing at her and she wisely stands aside,” Springer says. “She lets the media and fans continue to lob things at her because among that lobbing is a great deal of affection.”

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