#michael rainey

1968. Peregrine Eliot (aka from 1988 the tenth Earl of St Germans) has opened his estate to a community of hippies who seek an alternative way of life. This dreamy film sees news reporter Dale Le Vack meet members of the community and attempts to explore aspirations for centring and pooling resources including giving up traditional living in the pursuit of harmony, freedom, self-sufficiency and vegetarianism.

And guess who has joined those hippies?

On the 28th January this year, a professional hero of mine, Michael Rainey passed away. I only found out this week, just by chance. Michael Rainey was a designer and owner of the boutique, Hung On You in the mid sixties, but where as lots of other designers of the era are household names, Michael Rainey seems to have been overlooked. 

Both George and John were fans of his clothing - George’s purple jacket in the top photos was a Hung On You jacket - worn a lot by George in 1966 and famously for the Sgt. Pepper launch part in 1967. (John had the same jacket in red. Also, I think there’s a fair chance the tie sported by Ringo in that photo is Hung On You too). 

From his new Beatle affiliation he was asked to design the suits for the Beatles 1966 tour, which were the pale blue pinstripe worn by George and the black and green suit worn by Paul here. (Note the cut out cuff on George’s sleeve - that was so they could play guitar easier). This was an important departure from the Beatles previously very uniform, Dougie Millings style look - the trousers are wider (no longer drainies!), colour has arrived (previously all the suits were pretty much black, grey, navy, etc) and the psychedelic, hippy fashions of the late sixties are definitely in the post! 

Verifying all this info is very difficult [Fab Gear, thank you Mr. Hewitt!] and Michael Rainey seems to get pretty much zero credit in something I think is quite an important part of the Beatles fashion history and mid sixties look. They played their last stadium shows in Michael Rainey suits.