What The Band Wore

The Beatles In 1963, John, Paul, George, and Ringo were ready for their close-up ... and ready to send shockwaves across the globe. On the cusp of achieving worldwide success, The Beatles met Paris-based designer Pierre Cardin, whose Space Age themes revolutionized menswear in the early 1960s. He was also the first couturier to put a man on the catwalk.

“The

Beatles came directly to me,” Cardin recalled in Brooklyn Museum’s Pierre Cardin: Future Fashion (2019). “I made them these suits at their request. It was at the beginning of their careers and, with these collarless jackets, of course they were going to stand out on stage.” The band modeled Cardin’s slim-cut, sleekly tailored suits from his “Cylinder” collection on the covers of 45 singles like “She Loves You” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and wore them during countless sweat-soaked performances.

“He’s original,” noted 21-year-old Paul McCartney, when asked about Cardin. “Groups didn’t used to have this sort of jacket. We adopted this fashion.”

Photographer Terry O’Neill captured a playful moment of The

Beatles in their Cardin suits, which local tailor Douglas Millings copied in several different fabrics and colors. The group’s matching mop-tops also stirred a sensation, especially after their US television premiere on The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964. George Harrison dubbed their hairstyle “the Arthur,” inspiring a legion of listeners to experiment with scissors and combs. Modern bands like Oasis, One Direction, and K-Pop band BTS later approximated the group’s shaggy-locked ’dos but it was The Beatles who set a thrilling new standard in rock ’n’ roll style.

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The Beatles In 1963, John, Paul, George, and Ringo were ready for their close-up ... and ready to send shockwaves across the globe. On the cusp of achieving worldwide success, The Beatles met Paris-based designer Pierre Cardin, whose Space Age themes revolutionized menswear in the early 1960s. He was also the first couturier to put a man on the catwalk.

“The

Beatles came directly to me,” Cardin recalled in Brooklyn Museum’s Pierre Cardin: Future Fashion (2019). “I made them these suits at their request. It was at the beginning of their careers and, with these collarless jackets, of course they were going to stand out on stage.” The band modeled Cardin’s slim-cut, sleekly tailored suits from his “Cylinder” collection on the covers of 45 singles like “She Loves You” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and wore them during countless sweat-soaked performances.

“He’s original,” noted 21-year-old Paul McCartney, when asked about Cardin. “Groups didn’t used to have this sort of jacket. We adopted this fashion.”

Photographer Terry O’Neill captured a playful moment of The

Beatles in their Cardin suits, which local tailor Douglas Millings copied in several different fabrics and colors. The group’s matching mop-tops also stirred a sensation, especially after their US television premiere on The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964. George Harrison dubbed their hairstyle “the Arthur,” inspiring a legion of listeners to experiment with scissors and combs. Modern bands like Oasis, One Direction, and K-Pop band BTS later approximated the group’s shaggy-locked ’dos but it was The Beatles who set a thrilling new standard in rock ’n’ roll style.

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The Rolling Stones “The Rolling Stones invented the very image of the modern rock star,” The New York Times declared in 2016. “With a fashion sensibility that was one part Vogue magazine and one part skin magazine, the Stones laid the groundwork for punk, dandified Mod, pushed psychedelia to its cartoon extreme, and basically invented glam rock. And that was just the ’60s.”

The New York Times got it right — Mick Jagger, Keith Richards,

Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman, and quintessential dandy Brian Jones maximized the power of style in rock ’n’ roll. “You want to be new, you want to be eye-catching and yet elegant, but yet crazy, because you’re on stage,” Jagger said on the occasion of the Stones’ fashion exhibit, Exhibitionism.

“It’s not just five blokes in blue jeans going on with a lot of amps.”

A photo session from 1968 exemplified how each individual member integrated his own fashion statement into the band, courtesy of King’s Road boutiques like Granny Takes a Trip, Dandie Fashions, and Hung on You. “It was really the ‘anything goes’ period,” Jagger noted about the Stones’ mid-’60s fashion incarnation. “There was a lot of antique clothing being sold, and a lot of it was revived Romantic stuff in velvets and things like that.” Wrapped in colorful scarves, Brian Jones, in particular, excelled in period experimentation.

Actress and model Anita Pallenberg, who

dated both Jones and Keith Richards, was among those who inspired band members to become more sartorially adventurous. “It really pissed off Charlie Watts, with his walk-in cupboards of impeccable Savile Row suits, that I started to become a fashion icon for wearing my old lady’s clothes,” Richards quipped in his memoir, Life (2010). When it came to style, the Stones got “satisfaction” anywhere and everywhere.

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The Rolling Stones “The Rolling Stones invented the very image of the modern rock star,” The New York Times declared in 2016. “With a fashion sensibility that was one part Vogue magazine and one part skin magazine, the Stones laid the groundwork for punk, dandified Mod, pushed psychedelia to its cartoon extreme, and basically invented glam rock. And that was just the ’60s.”

The New York Times got it right — Mick Jagger, Keith Richards,

Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman, and quintessential dandy Brian Jones maximized the power of style in rock ’n’ roll. “You want to be new, you want to be eye-catching and yet elegant, but yet crazy, because you’re on stage,” Jagger said on the occasion of the Stones’ fashion exhibit, Exhibitionism.

“It’s not just five blokes in blue jeans going on with a lot of amps.”

A photo session from 1968 exemplified how each individual member integrated his own fashion statement into the band, courtesy of King’s Road boutiques like Granny Takes a Trip, Dandie Fashions, and Hung on You. “It was really the ‘anything goes’ period,” Jagger noted about the Stones’ mid-’60s fashion incarnation. “There was a lot of antique clothing being sold, and a lot of it was revived Romantic stuff in velvets and things like that.” Wrapped in colorful scarves, Brian Jones, in particular, excelled in period experimentation.

Actress and model Anita Pallenberg, who

dated both Jones and Keith Richards, was among those who inspired band members to become more sartorially adventurous. “It really pissed off Charlie Watts, with his walk-in cupboards of impeccable Savile Row suits, that I started to become a fashion icon for wearing my old lady’s clothes,” Richards quipped in his memoir, Life (2010). When it came to style, the Stones got “satisfaction” anywhere and everywhere.

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David Bowie There’s Ziggy Stardust and there’s Aladdin Sane ... and then there’s David Bowie, the architect behind two characters who propelled him to stardom, but also commented on the elusive nature of fame. “There was a point in ’73 where I knew it was all over,” Bowie recalled in Rolling Stone magazine. “I didn’t want to be trapped in this Ziggy character all my life. And I guess what I was doing on Aladdin Sane (1973), I was trying to move into the next area — but using a rather pale imitation of Ziggy as a secondary device. In my mind, it was ‘Ziggy Goes to Washington’: Ziggy under the influence of America.”

Bowie’s earliest performances as Ziggy Stardust

had captured the imagination of future rock icons. “David was the beginning of me kind of exploring my identity as a teenager,” Boy George said in David Bowie Is (2013). “Suddenly, I wasn’t the only person like me in the world. That literally was how I felt.” Queen members Freddie Mercury and Roger Taylor even attended Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders from Mars’ first gig in January 1972. “We loved it,” Taylor told MOJO magazine. “You saw this spiky head coming on stage. You thought, whaaat? They looked like spacemen.”

Photographer Masayoshi Sukita captured Bowie in

transition between Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane. On the eve of his performance at Radio City Music Hall in February 1973, Bowie donned a black striped bodysuit created by Kansai Yamamoto. The outfit adapted the tenets of “hakama” — a baggy, formless trouser worn by Samurai and martial arts practitioners. Sukita dubbed his series of portraits “Watch That Man,” titled after the opening track of Aladdin Sane. Five months later, Ziggy Stardust took his final bow, but Bowie still had a few more characters to unveil ...

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David Bowie There’s Ziggy Stardust and there’s Aladdin Sane ... and then there’s David Bowie, the architect behind two characters who propelled him to stardom, but also commented on the elusive nature of fame. “There was a point in ’73 where I knew it was all over,” Bowie recalled in Rolling Stone magazine. “I didn’t want to be trapped in this Ziggy character all my life. And I guess what I was doing on Aladdin Sane (1973), I was trying to move into the next area — but using a rather pale imitation of Ziggy as a secondary device. In my mind, it was ‘Ziggy Goes to Washington’: Ziggy under the influence of America.”

Bowie’s earliest performances as Ziggy Stardust

had captured the imagination of future rock icons. “David was the beginning of me kind of exploring my identity as a teenager,” Boy George said in David Bowie Is (2013). “Suddenly, I wasn’t the only person like me in the world. That literally was how I felt.” Queen members Freddie Mercury and Roger Taylor even attended Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders from Mars’ first gig in January 1972. “We loved it,” Taylor told MOJO magazine. “You saw this spiky head coming on stage. You thought, whaaat? They looked like spacemen.”

Photographer Masayoshi Sukita captured Bowie in

transition between Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane. On the eve of his performance at Radio City Music Hall in February 1973, Bowie donned a black striped bodysuit created by Kansai Yamamoto. The outfit adapted the tenets of “hakama” — a baggy, formless trouser worn by Samurai and martial arts practitioners. Sukita dubbed his series of portraits “Watch That Man,” titled after the opening track of Aladdin Sane. Five months later, Ziggy Stardust took his final bow, but Bowie still had a few more characters to unveil ...

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Fleetwood Mac Vogue once called Mick Fleetwood a “free-spirited sorcerer” (2022). Since founding Fleetwood Mac in the mid-’60s, the drummer set a tone for style that evolved from the band’s earliest beginnings as a British blues–rock powerhouse to one of the purveyors of Southern California pop. It’s the latter incarnation of Fleetwood Mac that crystallized the classic line-up of Fleetwood, co-founder John McVie, Christine McVie, Lindsey Buckingham, and Stevie Nicks. “We all had definite images in the band,” Christine McVie said in The Guardian. “Stevie was the Welsh witch. I was mother nature. Mick was the raving lunatic. Everyone was very different, but we all got on” (2022).

With the release of Rumours (1977), which marked

Buckingham and Nicks’ second album with the band, Fleetwood Mac topped the Billboard 200 for 31 weeks and became a commercial juggernaut. An outtake from Sam Emerson’s cover photo for their number-one single “Dreams” featured a range of homespun styles among the five members, from McVie’s vintage dress and platform boots to Fleetwood’s dapper combination of vest, pocket watch, and cravat. John McVie and Buckingham both convey casual rock star chic in blue jeans and open collared shirts, while Nicks models an early variation of what The New York Times dubbed her “West Coast Ophelia look” (2009), pairing denim with a cardigan and diaphanous scarf.

Nicks subsequently forged a

career- spanning relationship with Margi Kent, whose designs would inspire Anna Sui and Isaac Mizrahi to devote entire collections to Nicks’ style. Fleetwood himself later became the face for Harry Styles’ beauty product line, “Pleasing.” Six decades after exploring the colorful boutiques of Carnaby Street, he’s still the consummate rock ’n’ roll dandy.

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Fleetwood Mac Vogue once called Mick Fleetwood a “free-spirited sorcerer” (2022). Since founding Fleetwood Mac in the mid-’60s, the drummer set a tone for style that evolved from the band’s earliest beginnings as a British blues–rock powerhouse to one of the purveyors of Southern California pop. It’s the latter incarnation of Fleetwood Mac that crystallized the classic line-up of Fleetwood, co-founder John McVie, Christine McVie, Lindsey Buckingham, and Stevie Nicks. “We all had definite images in the band,” Christine McVie said in The Guardian. “Stevie was the Welsh witch. I was mother nature. Mick was the raving lunatic. Everyone was very different, but we all got on” (2022).

With the release of Rumours (1977), which marked

Buckingham and Nicks’ second album with the band, Fleetwood Mac topped the Billboard 200 for 31 weeks and became a commercial juggernaut. An outtake from Sam Emerson’s cover photo for their number-one single “Dreams” featured a range of homespun styles among the five members, from McVie’s vintage dress and platform boots to Fleetwood’s dapper combination of vest, pocket watch, and cravat. John McVie and Buckingham both convey casual rock star chic in blue jeans and open collared shirts, while Nicks models an early variation of what The New York Times dubbed her “West Coast Ophelia look” (2009), pairing denim with a cardigan and diaphanous scarf.

Nicks subsequently forged a

career- spanning relationship with Margi Kent, whose designs would inspire Anna Sui and Isaac Mizrahi to devote entire collections to Nicks’ style. Fleetwood himself later became the face for Harry Styles’ beauty product line, “Pleasing.” Six decades after exploring the colorful boutiques of Carnaby Street, he’s still the consummate rock ’n’ roll dandy.

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Earth, Wind & Fire Earth, Wind & Fire played like musical superheroes. Their spirited performance of “September” and “That’s the Way of the World” were among the highlights of The Music for UNICEF Concert: A Gift of Song in January 1979, which brought together top acts like the Bee Gees, Donna Summer, Rod Stewart, and Olivia Newton-John at the United Nations General Assembly. Photographed by Michael Putland, the members of Earth, Wind & Fire adorned the stage like a glowing constellation.

Their wardrobe

had its own kind of superpower. Group leader Maurice White enlisted designer Bill Whitten to create a dazzling assemblage of costumes customized for each member. “He was one of the greatest designers,” says EWF co-founder and bassist Verdine White. “He did wardrobe for a lot of people — Earth, Wind & Fire, The Jacksons, The Commodores. We had so much reverence for him.

“If you look at the workmanship on those

clothes that you saw us in, it was beautiful. They were heavy in fabric but they looked great. The clothes reflected the spirit of Earth, Wind & Fire and who we were and the vision that Maurice had. It was a very unique vision, of course. The clothes reflected it perfectly. Bill was really spot-on.

He was that good. We wore them for a lot of things. We wore them in the Sgt. Pepper movie [1978]. It was a magical moment and a magical time.”

“Clothes are really investments, they’re not just outfits,” White adds.

In fact, clothes have even brought Earth, Wind & Fire’s legacy to the most prestigious arts institutions around the world. Wearing Whitten’s designs in a classic portrait by Bruce Talamon, the band now has a permanent home in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. Indeed, that’s the way of the wardrobe ...

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Earth, Wind & Fire Earth, Wind & Fire played like musical superheroes. Their spirited performance of “September” and “That’s the Way of the World” were among the highlights of The Music for UNICEF Concert: A Gift of Song in January 1979, which brought together top acts like the Bee Gees, Donna Summer, Rod Stewart, and Olivia Newton-John at the United Nations General Assembly. Photographed by Michael Putland, the members of Earth, Wind & Fire adorned the stage like a glowing constellation.

Their wardrobe

had its own kind of superpower. Group leader Maurice White enlisted designer Bill Whitten to create a dazzling assemblage of costumes customized for each member. “He was one of the greatest designers,” says EWF co-founder and bassist Verdine White. “He did wardrobe for a lot of people — Earth, Wind & Fire, The Jacksons, The Commodores. We had so much reverence for him.

“If you look at the workmanship on those

clothes that you saw us in, it was beautiful. They were heavy in fabric but they looked great. The clothes reflected the spirit of Earth, Wind & Fire and who we were and the vision that Maurice had. It was a very unique vision, of course. The clothes reflected it perfectly. Bill was really spot-on.

He was that good. We wore them for a lot of things. We wore them in the Sgt. Pepper movie [1978]. It was a magical moment and a magical time.”

“Clothes are really investments, they’re not just outfits,” White adds.

In fact, clothes have even brought Earth, Wind & Fire’s legacy to the most prestigious arts institutions around the world. Wearing Whitten’s designs in a classic portrait by Bruce Talamon, the band now has a permanent home in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. Indeed, that’s the way of the wardrobe ...

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Madonna Reinvention is a constant of Madonna’s career. However, it’s the Madonna of 1983 who exploded into the charts from New York’s East Village by way of Detroit, a veritable street urchin whose videos for “Lucky Star” and “Borderline” rotated round the clock on MTV. French/Moroccan designer Maripol helped Madonna craft the first of many iconic looks in those videos, most notably the black rubber bracelets that lined her wrists.

“I feel naked without accessories,” Madonna said in an interview with Evening Magazine where she explained the influence of Maripol, who also presided as art director for Fiorucci in New York. “I try not to look too symmetrical. Whenever I do photo sessions for a magazine, or I’m doing a video or even a live performance, Maripol helps me with the whole stylization. She puts quantities of bracelets on your arm, not just rubber, some rhinestones too, to change the texture of it, and then lots of necklaces and earrings, so you’re kind of decorated like a Christmas tree.”

Deborah Feingold photographed Madonna just before the release of her 1983 self-titled debut. “It was a 20-minute shoot in my apartment,” Feingold recalled in an interview with The Boston Globe (2014). “I was all set up. I had one assistant. Madonna came with Liz Rosenberg, who remained her publicist. Her makeup was ready to go. I had a bowl of lollipops, Tootsie Rolls, and bubble gum. Everything was very simple. I shot four rolls of film, and for every frame she changed it up. It was like a dance, and I was a good follower. I had the skill, but she led. Twenty minutes later, she knew we had finished, and she left.” Madonna went out the door ... and into fashion history.

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Madonna Reinvention is a constant of Madonna’s career. However, it’s the Madonna of 1983 who exploded into the charts from New York’s East Village by way of Detroit, a veritable street urchin whose videos for “Lucky Star” and “Borderline” rotated round the clock on MTV. French/Moroccan designer Maripol helped Madonna craft the first of many iconic looks in those videos, most notably the black rubber bracelets that lined her wrists.

“I feel naked without accessories,” Madonna said in an interview with Evening Magazine where she explained the influence of Maripol, who also presided as art director for Fiorucci in New York. “I try not to look too symmetrical. Whenever I do photo sessions for a magazine, or I’m doing a video or even a live performance, Maripol helps me with the whole stylization. She puts quantities of bracelets on your arm, not just rubber, some rhinestones too, to change the texture of it, and then lots of necklaces and earrings, so you’re kind of decorated like a Christmas tree.”

Deborah Feingold photographed Madonna just before the release of her 1983 self-titled debut. “It was a 20-minute shoot in my apartment,” Feingold recalled in an interview with The Boston Globe (2014). “I was all set up. I had one assistant. Madonna came with Liz Rosenberg, who remained her publicist. Her makeup was ready to go. I had a bowl of lollipops, Tootsie Rolls, and bubble gum. Everything was very simple. I shot four rolls of film, and for every frame she changed it up. It was like a dance, and I was a good follower. I had the skill, but she led. Twenty minutes later, she knew we had finished, and she left.” Madonna went out the door ... and into fashion history.

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Red Hot Chili Peppers Rolling Stone magazine had the perfect description for Red Hot Chili Peppers: “A four-way collision of fading widescreen glitter, sidewalk sleaze, arty smarm and nature-boy giddiness” (1992). Melding funk, punk, rock, and hip hop with LA’s sun-bleached surf and skate scene, the band brought an intoxicating combination of influences and stylistic elements to their music. As lead vocalist Anthony Kiedis later shared in 60 Minutes, the group was “a make-it or break-it bunch of boys that were willing to risk everything to have fun in the moment” (2023).

Photographer AJ

Barratt captured those qualities during the band’s visit to Amsterdam in August 1989 for the Uitmarkt festival. In what might be a fashion first, a circus of stuffed animals lined bassist Flea’s trousers, which he reprised for the group’s “Higher Ground” video, and rapper Young MC’s “Bust a Move” video, while Kiedis paired a striped skirt with motorcycle boots.

Elsewhere, guitarist John Frusciante and drummer Chad Smith kept it cool in shades and stylish toppers.

The band’s bare torsos were the

ultimate “costume” for boys who just wanted to have fun. “Back in the ’90s, you couldn’t shake a stick without hitting a singer with long hair and his shirt off,” Smith later recalled in the Los Angeles Times (2022). In fact, Red Hot Chili Peppers were known for dressing down to a strategically placed garment during their “socks on cocks” phase. “We’re advocates of freedom in music and, to us, being naked when you play expresses the ultimate act of freedom,” Kiedis told Musician magazine in 1989. Freedom seldom sounded, or looked, so ferociously funky.

166

Red Hot Chili Peppers Rolling Stone magazine had the perfect description for Red Hot Chili Peppers: “A four-way collision of fading widescreen glitter, sidewalk sleaze, arty smarm and nature-boy giddiness” (1992). Melding funk, punk, rock, and hip hop with LA’s sun-bleached surf and skate scene, the band brought an intoxicating combination of influences and stylistic elements to their music. As lead vocalist Anthony Kiedis later shared in 60 Minutes, the group was “a make-it or break-it bunch of boys that were willing to risk everything to have fun in the moment” (2023).

Photographer AJ

Barratt captured those qualities during the band’s visit to Amsterdam in August 1989 for the Uitmarkt festival. In what might be a fashion first, a circus of stuffed animals lined bassist Flea’s trousers, which he reprised for the group’s “Higher Ground” video, and rapper Young MC’s “Bust a Move” video, while Kiedis paired a striped skirt with motorcycle boots.

Elsewhere, guitarist John Frusciante and drummer Chad Smith kept it cool in shades and stylish toppers.

The band’s bare torsos were the

ultimate “costume” for boys who just wanted to have fun. “Back in the ’90s, you couldn’t shake a stick without hitting a singer with long hair and his shirt off,” Smith later recalled in the Los Angeles Times (2022). In fact, Red Hot Chili Peppers were known for dressing down to a strategically placed garment during their “socks on cocks” phase. “We’re advocates of freedom in music and, to us, being naked when you play expresses the ultimate act of freedom,” Kiedis told Musician magazine in 1989. Freedom seldom sounded, or looked, so ferociously funky.

166

Spice Girls Spice Girls = five personalities and endless fashion possibilities. The group’s colorfully eclectic style collectively embodied their “Girl Power” manifesto, first glimpsed on their debut single “Wannabe” (1996), which topped the chart in more than 30 countries around the world. “The group’s arrival on the pop scene marked the gateway to a modern form of feminism, all dressed up as a riotously good time,” wrote Stylist magazine on the occasion of their 20th anniversary. “For a generation of women, The Spice Girls flew the flag for sisterhood, female empowerment and feisty independence” (2016).

Spice Girls also helped stoke a renewed

buzz in British music, fashion, and culture. While the group promised to “Spice Up Your Life,” Newsweek deemed London “the coolest city on the planet” and Vanity Fair announced, “London Swings, Again!” Time magazine even remarked that the five-member group were “arguably the most recognizable face” of so-called “Cool Britannia.” By way of illustration, Geri Halliwell wore a Union Jack miniskirt at the 1997 Brit Awards where the group were decorated with two awards.

That same year, the Spice

Girls won “Best Group Award” at the MTV Europe Music Awards over fellow homegrown acts Oasis, Radiohead, The Prodigy, and U2. Towering in their signature platform-styled footwear, they each embodied distinct personalities, from the sleekly sophisticated Victoria Beckham (“Posh Spice”) and colorful and cute Emma Bunton (“Baby Spice”), to the dayglow animal prints favored by Mel B (“Scary Spice”) and red sequins that adorned Halliwell (“Ginger Spice”). With Melanie C’s crop top and trainers putting the “sport” in “Sporty Spice,” the group brought “Spicemania” to a fever pitch around the globe.

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Spice Girls Spice Girls = five personalities and endless fashion possibilities. The group’s colorfully eclectic style collectively embodied their “Girl Power” manifesto, first glimpsed on their debut single “Wannabe” (1996), which topped the chart in more than 30 countries around the world. “The group’s arrival on the pop scene marked the gateway to a modern form of feminism, all dressed up as a riotously good time,” wrote Stylist magazine on the occasion of their 20th anniversary. “For a generation of women, The Spice Girls flew the flag for sisterhood, female empowerment and feisty independence” (2016).

Spice Girls also helped stoke a renewed

buzz in British music, fashion, and culture. While the group promised to “Spice Up Your Life,” Newsweek deemed London “the coolest city on the planet” and Vanity Fair announced, “London Swings, Again!” Time magazine even remarked that the five-member group were “arguably the most recognizable face” of so-called “Cool Britannia.” By way of illustration, Geri Halliwell wore a Union Jack miniskirt at the 1997 Brit Awards where the group were decorated with two awards.

That same year, the Spice

Girls won “Best Group Award” at the MTV Europe Music Awards over fellow homegrown acts Oasis, Radiohead, The Prodigy, and U2. Towering in their signature platform-styled footwear, they each embodied distinct personalities, from the sleekly sophisticated Victoria Beckham (“Posh Spice”) and colorful and cute Emma Bunton (“Baby Spice”), to the dayglow animal prints favored by Mel B (“Scary Spice”) and red sequins that adorned Halliwell (“Ginger Spice”). With Melanie C’s crop top and trainers putting the “sport” in “Sporty Spice,” the group brought “Spicemania” to a fever pitch around the globe.

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No Doubt No Doubt’s arrival at the MTV Video Music Awards in 1998 exemplified their individualized approach to style, whether it’s drummer Adrian Young wearing a T-shirt in tribute to punk band The Vandals, percussionist Gabrial McNair adding a touch of glitter to his coif, bassist Tony Kanal sporting a black boater hat, or lead singer Gwen Stefani personifying what Vogue described as “the alt-girl attitude of the era” (2019).

Few

artists could pair a furry bikini top with blue-hued buns. “It was kind of inspired by Judy Jetson from The Jetsons,” Stefani recalled in a 2019 interview with Vogue. “I had just gotten home from tour. Somebody sent me this product that was like this gel that you put in your hair. It was blue and it was like a paste. I had met this girl through my manager that made clothes and so she made this little skirt for me. The blue bathing suit top ... you would wear it too if it was free!” Inspired by bandmate (and former boyfriend) Tony Kanal’s Indian heritage, Stefani rounded out the look with a jeweled bindi and glittering diamanté studs.

“I had

to be a little bit tomboy with a little bit glamour,” Stefani added. “That was the vibe for myself, what I always followed. Style definitely reflects your personality, your mood, and where you’re at in your life.” Stefani would ultimately launch her own fashion line, L.A.M.B. in 2004 while the Southern California-based band itself would partner with Fred Perry on a polo collection inspired by their ska and reggae roots. Three decades later, No Doubt still has no limits to fashion.

190

No Doubt No Doubt’s arrival at the MTV Video Music Awards in 1998 exemplified their individualized approach to style, whether it’s drummer Adrian Young wearing a T-shirt in tribute to punk band The Vandals, percussionist Gabrial McNair adding a touch of glitter to his coif, bassist Tony Kanal sporting a black boater hat, or lead singer Gwen Stefani personifying what Vogue described as “the alt-girl attitude of the era” (2019).

Few

artists could pair a furry bikini top with blue-hued buns. “It was kind of inspired by Judy Jetson from The Jetsons,” Stefani recalled in a 2019 interview with Vogue. “I had just gotten home from tour. Somebody sent me this product that was like this gel that you put in your hair. It was blue and it was like a paste. I had met this girl through my manager that made clothes and so she made this little skirt for me. The blue bathing suit top ... you would wear it too if it was free!” Inspired by bandmate (and former boyfriend) Tony Kanal’s Indian heritage, Stefani rounded out the look with a jeweled bindi and glittering diamanté studs.

“I had

to be a little bit tomboy with a little bit glamour,” Stefani added. “That was the vibe for myself, what I always followed. Style definitely reflects your personality, your mood, and where you’re at in your life.” Stefani would ultimately launch her own fashion line, L.A.M.B. in 2004 while the Southern California-based band itself would partner with Fred Perry on a polo collection inspired by their ska and reggae roots. Three decades later, No Doubt still has no limits to fashion.

190

© 2023 Alice Harris World copyright reserved ISBN: 978-1-78884-231-0 The right of Alice Harris to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

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The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge the permission granted to reproduce the copyright material in this book. Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologises for any errors or omissions in the text and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.

Text: Christian John Wikane Editor: Alice Bowden Design: John and Orna Designs, London.

Printed in Hong Kong for ACC Art Books Ltd., Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK www.accartbooks.com

FASHION & MUSIC Alice Harris