Meet The Beatles: Fashion Trends

From Please Please Me to Abbey Road, the Beatles certainly left a mark on the generation that they presided over. In fact, it can be argued that the English rock band that formed in Liverpool in 1960 has influenced every aspect of popular culture, from music, to slang, to fashion and beyond. In the 1960's, as the Beatles were quickly rising to fame, the fashion world was also being rapidly conquered by the up-and-coming, modern, minimalist style (known as Mod). While the band was first and foremostly known for their musical success, they soon took on the role of style icons for entire generations of young men, first in Great Britain, and then throughout the world.

Musical Muses: Fashion Inspired by The Beatles

Ever since they took the music world by storm back in 1960, The Beatles have been known worldwide for their cutting-edge rock music and the cultural phenomenon they created in the UK and US. The “Fab Four,” comprised of Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, John Lennon, and George Harrison created music that was so universal and timeless that it continues to be popular today. In honor of Ringo Starr’s 70th birthday this week (July 7th), I chose The Beatles’ mod style as an outlet for fashion inspiration.

The Beatles

No rock ‘n roll group had more influence on a generation and the world as did The Beatles. They single handedly changed the period known as the ‘Sixties’ and their influence is still being felt today. Music, culture, lifestyles, hairstyles, clothing styles and attitudes all changed because of this remarkable band that emerged out of Liverpool England in the early 1960s. The Beatles were George Harrison, John Lennon, Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney as pictured above.

The Beatles themselves were greatly influenced by the early rock ‘n roll stars from America such as Elvis Presley, Fats Domino, Buddy Holly, Gene Vincent and others. During the band’s infancy they spent a considerable amount of time listening and copying the styles of these great 1950’s rock ‘n roll heroes.

Fab Gear: The Beatles And Fashion by Paolo Hewitt

Despite having almost every other aspect of their lives and careers scrutinised by writers, the role of fashion in The Beatles’ legend has until now been largely under reported. The group was, however, just as influential with their dress sense as with their music, remaining at the forefront of popular fashion throughout much of the 1960s.

Fab Gear: The Beatles And Fashion takes the reader through The Beatles’ early leather-clad days in Hamburg and Liverpool, through the suited and booted years into the psychedelic realm of Sgt Pepper and Apple, and onwards to their more understated post-India later years. Moving from mods to dandies, pills to LSD and Carnaby Street to Chelsea, they had strict ideas about their image, adopting and adapting contemporary styles, taking the best aspects before moving on to the next.

Style Icons: The Beatles

Why They're Style Icons

Before ‘N Sync, the Backstreet Boys and that train wreck known as 98 Degrees, there was a music phenomenon bigger than all of their cloying, poppish sounds combined: The Beatles. They were the original boy band. For most of these international superstar sensations, fashion is an integral part of achieving success. The Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, realized this early on and cleaned up shop by plucking the Fab Four out of a dated world of '50’s leather jackets and greasy hair. When The Beatles took the world stage in the 1960s, they had a never-before-seen juxtaposition of smart suits and shaggy hair. The popular mop-top was just as much of a cultural revolution as the new pop-rock sound of the band itself. The delectable 'do even reached illegal status in communist Brezhnev Russia for its rebellious statement of disheveled dapperness.

How The Beatles brought Fab fashion to our closets

Their style, as seen on stages and album covers and in their personal lives, proved pioneering and popular.

The Beatles didn't just change the world sonically, of course. Their style — on stages, album covers and in their personal lives — proved pioneering, influencing the closets of not only their performing peers but also their fawning fans. USA TODAY's Olivia Barker tracks the band's long and winding wardrobe road, from rockabilly rebels to Sgt. Pepperpeacocks to natty knights in white suits.

Greasers in Germany

Hunkered down in Hamburg circa 1960, they followed a fashion that was more fierce than fab: motorcycle jackets, jeans or leather pants, cowboy boots and slick pompadours. (Pete Best, on drums, stuck with his.) It was a Brylcreem-and-popped-collar homage to their musical heroes: Gene Vincent and Elvis Presley.

The Beatles Style Inspiration

Famous acts create a look, an identity, a signature, and run with it. Lady Gaga’s thing is that she’s some kind of crazy Barbie on LSD (right?), Katy Perry has a dirty mouth under an unassuming head of blue, pink, or purple hair, and the Biebs has a crazy feathered ‘do. Zoe Deschanel has bangs. But (the world’s most significant popular phenomenon) The Beatles, despite their constant fame, did not hide or rest within a single identity. Throughout their decade of wonderful togetherness, they plunged themselves hairy-head-first into important and urgent schools of thought and belief systems, and their clothing always reflected this. Coco Chanel said that “fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.” If you merely study the (predominant) style changes of the band, you will see what they were doing between recording sessions, where their plane had flown from, which authors they were reading.