40 Vintage Photos Of Stevie Nicks, The 1970s’ Ultimate Summer Beauty

Nicks posted this dreamy looking throwback photo – one of many old Polaroids she’d found in a box – on Twitter in 2014. Nicks added the words, “Well, this is no ticket to dream land, a garden for feelings to grow in as I run to the door.” It’s a fitting caption for a poetic image. 

Nicks was always great friends with Christine McVie: her only female bandmate in Fleetwood Mac. So, the former was devastated when she left the group in 1998. Nicks told Vulture magazine in 2013 that the band wasn’t nearly “as fun” without McVie, but she totally supported her decision to leave.

If there’s one instrument associated with Stevie Nicks, it’s the tambourine. Here, she is playing it on stage in October 1977 and looking utterly lost in the music. Fans of Nicks have adopted the tambourine as a symbol for themselves too, so you’ll find plenty of tambourine tattoos in Fleetwood Mac fandom.

In this picture, Nicks is alongside the man who gave Fleetwood Mac its name. They had a mad, short-lived relationship which yep, started off as an affair. Mick Fleetwood was a married man when he and Nicks got together during a tour in 1977. The latter has some regrets about it now, but she still considers him one of the loves of her life.

Nicks went on a solo tour called The Other Side of the Mirror in 1989. One of the stops was London’s Wembley Arena, where this photo was snapped. She’s dressed to the nines, and you may notice that Nicks has got a lot of ribbons hanging from her mic stand, too. Interestingly, it was during this tour when the star brought out that particular trademark.

This picture – taken in 1976 – shows what looks like a moment of almost-normality for Nicks and McVie as they board the Fleetwood Mac tour bus. The band was massive by then, and touring was becoming more and more of an endurance test. They were also working on their album Rumors that year – adding to everybody’s stresses.

Nicks was just the most photogenic woman ever back in her day. Here, she is putting on her blood-red lipstick while wearing crucifix earrings. Nicks is about to rush back out on stage during a show in 1985. And yet she makes it look like this photo is a carefully constructed scene instead of a backstage snap.

Here, Nicks sits in the recording studio in 1975 doing her job with a tremendous amount of style. Somehow she’s managed to match her shirt to the nearby coffee cup – very impressive indeed. And check out those bracelets! It’s just something else which would become a big part of Nicks’ Look.

Every Nicks fan knows about her history with Lindsey Buckingham. The pair were a couple when they first joined Fleetwood Mac, but their story soon turned into an angst-fraught rollercoaster ride more dramatic than any movie. The two are essentially “divorced” these days – despite never having actually been married.

You might remember that Nicks played a black-clad witch in the TV show American Horror Story. But before that, she dressed up as a witch just for fun. Very much her style, right? Nicks posted this throwback shot on her Twitter account in 2014 – just on time for October 31, of course.

This photo perfectly sums up the fame Nicks enjoyed during the ’80s. She’s on stage at the UCLA Rock N’ Run benefit show and clad in her usual black attire – holding a bunch of roses that match her lipstick. And stretched out behind her are thousands of people waiting in the sun to see their idol.

Here’s Nicks being very much herself on stage. It’s 1977, and she’s performing at the Oakland Coliseum in California – Nicks is giving whole generations of girls some exciting new fashion inspiration. The billowing black dress, top hat, jewelry… everything is there. And it is easy to recreate for yourself!

Here’s a slightly spooky selfie from Nicks – made long before selfies as we know them even existed. She posted it on social media in 2014 and wrote, “Some people don’t sleep at night – I am one of those people... these pictures were taken long after everyone had gone to bed.”

Stephen Wozniak was recovering from a plane crash in 1982 when he suddenly had the bright idea to throw a rock concert. The Apple co-founder spent a lot of money on getting big names to turn up, and one of them was Nicks. She appeared on stage with him and ensured everyone had a good time – even though Wozniak was reportedly out $5 million once the event was over!

Nicks apparently still remembers where the famous top hat look comes from. The star told Vogue magazine in 2020 that she’d decided 45 years earlier, “... I want beautiful handmade suede platform boots that are high but not bulky. And I want a top hat, which I will find out on the road myself.” Clearly, Nicks did just that.

Here’s Nicks at a press conference in 1979 – wearing pitch-perfect makeup but also the most incredible mane of 1970s hair. She knew the hairdo was part of her appeal, but the singer always wanted to cut it herself. Nicks told Harper’s Bazaar in 2011, “I’d take the top, measure it with my fingers and chop it off. I did it pretty well.”

Nicks’ love of dogs lasted far beyond this photo from 1975. Ever since the star became famous, she always made sure to take her dogs along on tour. And the rocker has had many furry friends throughout the years. These included a poodle called Ginny, an Afghan Hound named Branwen and a Yorkshire terrier mix going by the name of Sulamith.

In December 2014 Nicks’ social media team posted a rarely seen picture of the singer looking absolutely radiant on stage in July 1983. It was captioned, “Stevie on the Wild Heart Tour at Capitol Centre in Landover, MD.” The comments were soon full of people excitingly saying they’d been there.

Nicks liked to dress in a witchy sort of way, as seen here, but that didn’t mean the star actually was a witch. And as her career took off, Nicks hated that people thought she was one. In a 2013 interview with the Los Angeles Times, the star remembered always thinking back then, “I just wear black because it makes me look thinner, you idiots.”

This picture – taken in 1977 – is just so perfectly Stevie Nicks. She’s got all her trademarks present: the tambourine, tumbling hair, jewelry, black clothes... Nicks said in a 2019 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, “I mean, I don’t do casual very well.” And she really wasn’t kidding!

Of course, we all know about the mirror selfie – people take them every day. Though Nicks was doing it long before it was cool. Check out this neat throwback photo that the star posted on social media in 2014! How did Nicks set all that up? We don’t know. She’s just that good.

Did you know that Nicks and Tom Petty go back a long way? Yep, this picture of them together is from 1981 – the same year they released their hit song “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.” They were genuinely great friends as well as co-stars, and Nicks was understandably devastated when he passed away in 2017.

Nicks had cemented her on-stage look by 1979, and of course she would stick with it for the rest of her life. In a 2001 interview with the WSRS radio station she mused, “... It’s a timeless outfit, and it has made my life much easier because I don’t ever have to think about it.”

This old recording studio photograph is from 1975, so it was taken just as Fleetwood Mac were undergoing their meteoric rise to fame. You can see the beginnings of Nicks’ trademark fashion sense here – with the bracelets and patterned shawl. She still looks charmingly ordinary in this unguarded moment, though.

This wedding photo is so very awkward once you know what was going on between these people. Nicks had been having an affair with the groom Mick Fleetwood while he was married to another woman: Jenny Boyd. Then Nicks’ best friend Sara Recor – also married at the time – fell in love with Fleetwood when he may or may not have been still seeing Nicks. And Recor eventually ended up marrying him. So yep, there’s a lot behind those smiles here.

Here’s Nicks in all her glory on stage. The star has spoken in interviews about wanting to portray a “fairytale” image during performances, which probably everyone would agree she succeeded at. In 1982 Nicks told High Times magazine, “My fantasy is giving a little bit of the fairy princess to all the people out there that maybe don’t have the Hans Christian Andersen books, and the Grimm’s fairy tales. If that’s the only thing I can do for them, well, that’s fine.”

Nicks’ iconic style fitted just as well into the 1990s as any previous era. This image shows what she wore at the 1991 MTV Music Awards and it’s pretty amazing. There’s the black dress, of course, and the massive crucifix round the neck. But there’s also some fantastically wacky red earrings.

Nicks looks fabulously goth and witchy in this portrait from 1987. She once said in a 2019 Rolling Stone magazine interview, “Halloween is my favorite day, but I never have to wonder, ‘What am I gonna be for Halloween this year’? A witch, of course. Wearing my Stevie Nicks clothes.”

If Nicks hadn’t wanted to be a rock star, she probably could have made it as a supermodel. This dreamlike photo was taken backstage during a Los Angeles concert in 1985 and Nicks’ gaze is instantly arresting. And she also looks very androgynous, which was the fashion at the time.

It wasn’t just top hats Nicks liked; she looked great in all forms of headwear. And the singer looks like a boho queen in this image from Atlanta’s Omni Coliseum in 1977. Nicks describes herself differently, though. The star said in a 1991 interview with newspaper USA Today that she had a “Dickensian, London street-urchin look...”

Nicks is wearing uncharacteristically bright colors in this shot, but of course she looks fantastic in them. The floaty fabric makes her look downright ethereal. Nicks posted this throwback photo on Facebook back in 2014, alongside the mysterious caption, “Well I got your demons. They’re cryin’ out for love.”

Nicks was actually a singer long before Fleetwood Mac got started. In fact, she was doing it at the age of five! Her grandfather – a country music singer – knew she had what it took and was having her perform at an early age. Asked by The Guardian newspaper in 2020 what it would mean to her if she stopped singing, Nicks answered, “It would kill me.”

One of Nicks’ trademarks was her beautiful hair. She styled it in lots of different ways, and every look was spectacular. This one from 1987 is particularly awesome, and check out that lipstick and the earrings too! Nicks told Harper’s Bazaar in 2011 that she “didn’t want to look like anyone else,” and mission accomplished.

Looking at this photo from 1975, you can see why Nicks was considered a sex symbol of her era. The rocker wasn’t so sure herself, though. In 1994 she told Details magazine, “If physical beauty is the only reason people buy my records, then I don’t know why I’m doing this.”

This pic from July 1981 is of Nicks attending an event in Illinois – all dressed up in the perfect summer outfit. She told the Record Mirror newspaper in 1989, “I’ve always liked long, flowing clothes... I used to rummage around in my grandmother’s trunks trying to find them. I love the feeling of chiffon and lace.”

Here’s Fleetwood Mac in 1975, before the band reached the iconic status they hold today. A year prior to this picture being taken, there had been only three band members – Mick Fleetwood, Christine McVie and her husband John. Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham were struggling in their careers when they joined in 1975, and their lives changed forever after that.

The rocker is wearing everything in this shot and it’s amazing. There’s a headband, a cape… and feathers? Who knows where she got it all from, but man did she make it work. When speaking to High Times in 1982, Nicks remarked that she’d rather wear drapes than “anything you could sell me from Bloomingdale’s.”

Nicks turned up at the 1987 MTV Video Music Awards looking every bit the ’80s babe she was. She had on a daringly low-cut dress – in black, of course – and a matching sparkly band in her hair. Nicks and bandmate Christine McVie presented an award that night: the Best Group Video one.

Nicks has such a timeless beauty that this photo looks like it could’ve been taken in the modern era. But it’s actually a throwback picture that Nicks posted to Twitter in December 2014. She captioned it with the words, “I see through that smile, and I see through the heart of you.” Yep, that little poem perfectly matched her intense gaze.

This picture was taken in 1998 as Nicks and Buckingham attended a Rolling Stone party. By this point, they’d already broken up and had maintained a strange up-and-down almost-friendship over the years. Nicks might have summed it up best when she told Women’s Own magazine in 1990, “He and I were about as compatible as a boa constrictor and a rat.”

Nicks hadn’t even joined Fleetwood Mac when this 1974 photo was taken – she and Buckingham became band members on the last day of that year. The singer been making a living doing waitressing and cleaning jobs while trying to make it as a musician. So in this pic, she has absolutely no idea what amazing things are to come for her.