The Beatles: Get Back is a near-eight-hour distillation of more than 57 hours of footage filmed in January 1969 during the production of the band’s final album, Let It Be, which has been meticulously edited by director Peter Jackson in partnership with Disney+ and the Beatles’ production company, Apple Corps. To see the Fab Four so young, marvellously hirsute, riffing to their scores in a haze of blue tobacco smoke has a magical, ethereal equality – as does their apparel – which speaks of a pre-generation Z age when leading men weren’t afraid of donning fuchsia pink.
It reveals a distinct departure from the manicured, matching Pierre Cardin suits of their early years and acid-bright, uniformed Sgt. Pepper period. Instead, it’s a candid record of their aesthetic outside of stage-managed appearances and illustrates the chameleon-like evolution of their personal style after a decade in the public eye.
From the outset, the footage reveals Ringo Starr as the undisputed king of the flouncy kaleidoscopic shirt, who wears a succession of multi-hued floral and polka-dot ruffle-front numbers that have the rakish, bohemian appeal of 73 London’s designs. Equally of note is Starr’s louche sapphire-blue velvet blazer, which is redolent of a plush Tom Ford creation.
Paul McCartney is the most low key of the four – in the style stakes at least – opting for classic black rollnecks, granddad tops in a range of peppy hues and fitted sweater vests. He seems particularly attached to a pair of two-tone monk-strap loafers, which he wears with regularity to the studio. He also dons a particularly handsome windowpane-check overcoat during a chilly rehearsal session at the piano.
As for John Lennon, who often courted controversy with his sartorial tastes (look up his coat of human hair), he looks comfortable in a rainbow-stripe point-collar shirt, alongside jewel-hued tees tempered by a black waistcoat, while he taps his artfully scuffed tennis sneakers to the beat of their melodic strumming. He was certainly ahead of the genderless dressing curve – a fur coat he borrows from future wife Yoko Ono seldom leaves his shoulders during three weeks of filming. The couple were known for their penchant for pelts, once dropping $400,000 on nearly 80 coats after Bergdorf Goodman sent several trunks’ worth to their New York apartment on Yoko’s request.
While Lennon and Starr are often cited as the most sartorially astute of the quartet, it’s George Harrison that really shines in Get Back. His black Mongolian lamb fur coat has significant presence on screen, as does his double-denim combo of an indigo-blue western shirt, washed jeans and hand-embroidered Tibetan shearling boots. Harrison’s other noteworthy pieces include a series of rollnecks in highlighter hues, an Edwardian-inspired pastel suit and an amethyst ruffle-front shirt that added a whimsical air to the more dressed-down elements of the band’s collective style.
The docuseries culminates in the fabled rooftop concert on 30th January 1969, where cameras at street level capture the buzz of swinging London and the contrast between the Beatles’ foppish, dandified apparel with the more sober, conservative dress of the capital’s earlier generation, still sporting bowler hats and trilbies. This is after all, Savile Row, the tailoring mecca where Apple Corps set up its HQ at no. 3.
There are also hand-spun details that quietly signpost the band’s affection for indigenous cultures, from needlepoint shirts to McCartney and Harrison’s folksy embroidered guitar straps. It was a time when traditional textile crafts were still widely practiced – techniques that brands like Bode, SS Daley, Harago and Story MFG are championing today.
Outside of the Fab Four, there are some style heroes in the wings to note. George Martin, the band’s producer – sometimes dubbed ‘the fifth Beatle’ on account of his judicious honing of the band’s talents in the studio – has an almost ecclesiastical elegance in dark-hued suits and crisp white rollnecks with slick, pomaded hair and a panda-dial chronograph on his wrist. It’s a clean, ageless look that Jil Sander and Mrs Prada would surely endorse.
Glyn Johns, the band’s co-producer, seems to almost compete with the Fab Four for lens time in a mock crock leather jacket, cream lamb-fur coat and ‘Jackie O’ sunglasses. Then there’s legendary musician Billy Preston, who backed the Beatles – his perfectly set hair, earthy-hued tailoring and all-black sub-layers define the sartorial fluency of many African-American men of the period.
The heightened saturation of the film after restoration makes the riotous, psychedelic hues of the clothing truly pop, as though you are looking at a lost world through a Kodachrome-tinted lens. While not quite the pin-sharp HD we’re used to now, the restored footage is so lucid, it makes the garb feel all the more remarkable.
Nostalgia certainly has a comforting quality, which can go some way to explaining the cyclical nature of fashion. And with a fair chunk of modern menswear in a distinctly retrospective groove, we could all take some cues from the Beatles and get back some ’60s swagger of our own.
The Beatles: Get Back is available to stream on Disney+ now.
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