The Young Rolling Stones Return, in All Their Swinging London Splendor, in ‘Rare and Unseen’ Photo Book
17.04.2024 - 15:15
/ variety.com
Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music The music world of the 1960s was filled with fashion icons, from the Beatles to the Ronettes, from Jimi Hendrix to the Supremes, from Motown to Haight-Ashbury. But for some of us, the mid-1960s Rolling Stones were as cool as it gets. The Beatles were in the same lane but, truth be told, the Stones wore it better.
Their look defined Swinging London: the turtlenecks, the suede, the sunglasses, the corduroys, the Cuban heels, the checkered jackets and pants, all hanging perfectly on those skinny, vitamin-deprived postwar-British frames. Brian Jones’ iconic fringe haircut flew thousands of miles to California, where his and the band’s look quickly alighted on the Byrds, Love and the Jefferson Airplane. The Stones were considered shockingly scruffy by “The Establishment” but they had style, especially Keith Richards and Brian Jones.
Mick Jagger was the primary progenitor of the scruff; Charlie Watts would not ascend to his throne as the most dapper Stone until later. Arguably more than any other, photographer Gered Mankowitz captured that look between 1965 and 1967 — and you can see how far the band’s look (and sound) progressed in those years. Liberated from the slim suits of their early years, the group’s fashion grew from hip casual to psychedelic splendor in just 24 months.
And it’s all on display in Mankowitz’s spectacular new photo book, “The Rolling Stones: Rare and Unseen,.” from Welbeck Publishing. Some of the photos are familiar — he photographed several of the Stones’ album and single covers — but many are not and are published here for the first time. You truly feel the insane pace of life as a Stone, because Mankowitz was with them in the studio, in planes, in hotels, onstage
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