Tracing the history of The Beatles through their most iconic looks
Not only did The Beatles leave a gigantic impact on popular culture through their music, but their everchanging style has continued to influence the fashion industry in the five decades since they disbanded. Known for their moptop haircuts and matching suits, the band’s style evolved with their music, taking influence from the fashions of Swinging London when they weren’t inspiring it themselves.
According to writer Sean O’Hagan (via The Guardian), “Everything about them – the clothes they wore, the way they spoke, the songs they created with an effortlessness that seemed almost alchemical – suggested new ways of being. More than any of their contemporaries, they challenged the tired conventions that defined class-bound, insular, early-60s Britain.”
As their music began to incorporate avant-garde sounds and techniques alongside non-Western influence, the Liverpool four shed their uniform suits. They experimented with textures, colours and shapes, eventually morphing into acid-drenched soldiers for Sgt. Pepper and fur-clad, training-wearing rockers by Let It Be.
After forming as teenagers, The Beatles started their career by beginning their residency in Hamburg in 1960. They built up a reputation as a promising new group, recorded their first song and captured the attention of Brian Epstein. However, Hamburg is also where their stylistic journey began.
Tracing the history of The Beatles through their most iconic looks:
Leather clad rockers
Inspired by the German and French youths they met during their time in Europe, the Fab Four cut their hair into their iconic ‘mop-top’ styles that have become synonymous with the band. In Hamburg, the boys met Astrid Kirchherr, who was instrumental in their adoption of the style. She told BBC Radio Merseyside, “All my friends in art school used to run around with this sort of what you call Beatles haircut. And my boyfriend then, Klaus Voormann, had this hairstyle, and Stuart [Sutcliffe, The Beatles’ original bassist] liked it very, very much. He was the first one who really got the nerve to get the Brylcreem out of his hair and asking me to cut his hair for him.” After Kirchherr cut Sutcliffe’s hair, she replicated the same style in George Harrison’s before Paul McCartney and John Lennon got their mops cut to match in Paris by Kirchherr’s friend, Jürgen Vollmer.
When Sutcliffe began dating Kirchherr, the band began to wear lots of leather, both on and off stage. According to Pete Best (via Barneys Originals), “She walked in, and she was dressed in leather. She was a beautiful-looking girl anyway, but we were spellbound. Leather? When Stu fell in love with her, he started wearing leather too.” After The Beatles returned to Liverpool, they brought their leather-clad looks with them. “I’ve never seen so many kids start to wear leather jackets in Liverpool after that,” recalled Best.
Suited and booted
However, their leather days didn’t last long, and after much ridicule, they switched to suits, donning matching outfits as proposed by Epstein. Taking cues from black American vocal groups and British pop groups, The Beatles cultivated a cohesive image that established them as a recognisable group. Although the look was far from innovative, the band became known for their classic matching outfits, which possessed an effortlessly timeless appeal. Slimline blazers, slightly cropped trousers and Chelsea boots defined the silhouettes of their early days, appearing in matching outfits on the cover of their debut album, Please Please Me, in 1963. Their 1964 film A Hard Day’s Night is a perfect display of the band’s incredible collection of suits which has inspired generations of dressers. In the film, the musicians appear suave yet retain a slightly boyish charm as they run around with their blazers flapping in the wind.
In late 1963, the foursome temporarily donned matching grey collarless suits inspired by an earlier ensemble created by Parisian designer Pierre Cardin. The slim-fitting outfit featured pearl buttons and had no lapels, with each member sporting a thin black tie underneath. Although this exact design is not common today, the band’s dedication to wearing unique and smart designs encapsulated an era, providing endless inspiration for fashion designers in the decades to come.
Psychedelic influence
As the band’s music evolved to incorporate more experimental and Eastern influences, their style also shifted. They moved away from the preppy outfits that defined their earlier output and began wearing brighter colours and looser silhouettes, growing out their hair. On the cover of 1965’s Rubber Soul, it is apparent that the members have begun to adopt more individualistic styles, all sporting different, albeit similarly coloured, outfits. Although the band did not ditch their suits, they added elements of their personalities to their looks, including turtlenecks, velvet, corduroy and circular glasses. These iconic glasses have become heavily associated with the band, inspiring the young members of Oasis to don similar pairs during the height of their success in the 1990s.
The band’s foray into more vivid colours and relaxed shapes reflected the decade’s shift towards psychedelia. Movements of free love and drug experimentation made their way into art and music, with reverberating guitars and kaleidoscopic visuals replicating the effects of LSD. The Beatles’ 1966 album Revolver demonstrated heavy psychedelic influence, especially the tracks ‘Love You To’ and ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’. Thus, their outfits possessed a carefree sensibility, although they maintained a level of put-togetherness and refinement.
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and the emergence of facial hair
The Beatles had many iconic album covers, yet none were as recognisable as Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which has been parodied numerous times. The artwork depicts the foursome standing behind a flower display spelling ‘The Beatles’, akin to a funeral arrangement. Alongside them are the faces of icons from Bob Dylan to Edgar Allan Poe, and there’s even an image of the boys in their early days wearing matching suits pasted next to them. The members’ brightly-coloured military outfits, paired with distinctive facial hair, were quite the image change. At the heart of Swinging London was Chelsea’s fashionable King’s Road, where the coolest kids bought their clothes from trendy boutiques. Otherwise, they headed over to Portobello Market, finding old military jackets and reappropriating them for everyday wear. Just over two decades had passed since the end of the Second World War, and now, young people were reinventing military wear, and the Beatles were no exception.
McCartney explained in The Beatles Anthology that they picked “bright psychedelic colours, a bit like the fluorescent socks you used to get in the Fifties (they came in very pink, very turquoise or very yellow)” to “go against the idea of uniform.” The band used real war medals to accessorise. Soon enough, they resembled an eccentrically psychedelic group of soldiers, marching through the end of the decade with newfound confidence. Their unashamed experimentation with feminine colours and styles during this period, often sporting floral-printed jackets, floaty neckties and afghan coats, demonstrated their incomparable popularity. Their success meant they could get away with any look, no matter how daring.
Final Years
The Beatles made their trip to India in 1968, led by Harrison’s devoted interest in the teachings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, including Transcendental Meditation. Although their trip was incredibly creatively fruitful, it also impacted the band’s style. In an archive interview from The Beatles Anthology, Harrison shared, “If you go to India, you can’t wear Western clothes… That’s one of the best bits about India – having these cool clothes: big baggy shirts and pyjama trousers.” When the band returned to England, their fashion reflected the anti-establishment values they had come to develop. Standing in direct opposition to the image of a corporate, traditional businessman, they wore their suits even looser than before, grew their hair even longer and often sported denim as part of their smartwear.
In their last photoshoot as a band, Harrison and Lennon can be seen wearing jeans and a cowboy-style hat. The others wear colourful neckties and flared trousers, highlighting a dramatic departure from their days of wearing matching tailored suits. Moreover, during their iconic rooftop session, Harrison sports Converse, lurid green trousers and a fur jacket. Ringo Starr dons a shiny red leather jacket, and Lennon also sports causal white trainers with a fur jacket. Astonishingly, this style evolution only took ten years to form. In that time, the band released some of the greatest albums ever made, yet they also changed the course of fashion history.
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