With the sublime Sgt Pepper reaching its 50th birthday this year there are a load of events, books and merchandise to eulogise over the seminal piece.
Rated by many as The Beatles finest album, it's one that still today sparks debate on that topic. For me personally, it is their best work, but it is very closely followed by Revolver.
Pretty Green are joining the Sgt Pepper party with an official hook-up with The Beatles to create a new capsule collection currently due to drop in August.
It's an easy fit isn't it, PG are a brand that attempts to tie itself to the music world to give itself a unique selling point. The man at the head of the business is a confessed lover of The Beatles. No head scratcher, almost had to be done.
Details are sketchy at the moment, I've tried my best to get my paws on some information but had pretty much been coming up blank or smashing against brick walls.
PG held an event in Amsterdam last week, wasn't too sure what it was and PG certainly weren't talking. Very thankfully someone we know was there and they sorted us out with a whole host of images as the range was rather unexpectedly unveiled. The biggest gratitude goes out to those that help!
Mega for those in attendance, how cool was that. Going along for a few beers and not sure what was on the cards, to be met with this unveiling.
First question is whether this is a Beatles collection or a Sgt Pepper collection. I'm not 100% on this one, I think it looks to be a bit of a split range, featuring both Sgt Pepper and standard Beatles imagery.
The range will feature t-shirts, shirts, sweatshirts, jacket and so on. I'm sure I read pricing would be something like £45 - £450. So guess we're talking about £45 for t-shirts and up to £450 for the Outerwear pieces. Having had a quick look at some of the Parkas they look to be pretty substantial styles.
Pricing is always a very personal thing, but the price points are pretty standard for Pretty Green so no real surprises. Understandably we'll see moans and groans for things like t-shirts with a Beatles logo on them, but if you regularly buy PG then I don't think there looks to be any major surprises.
So what do we get in the range, let's take a look through what we have. Obviously lots of t-shirts, it's an easy way to reproduce the Beatles imagery at a price point that should allow most folks to hopefully get involved.
I don't think we've got anything to off-piste here, there are various Beatles images that I would think most music fans would be fairly familiar with.
The drop-T logo is a piece that is a straight up fan piece for me, it's not pushing the PG brand, simply giving fans of both a classic option. I get folks will object to the price for something like this, but I'd like to think with PG the quality will hopefully be better than a standard band merchandise top.
Price is very personal, so up to us all as individuals what we'll spend on something like this. I'll be buying one.
A style that will always cause a bit of uproar and moans of the 'can buy this down the market for a fiver' is the all over print style. Never been a fan of these myself and never hidden that, but for PG x The Beatles x Sgt Pepper I might just need to make an exception...
It's proper full on and I get that a lot of folks won't like it, won't like the design or the fact you could likely find a cheaper alternative. But I like this, I like the way they've brought the cover art down lower in the top to the mid-chest and left the top half plain. Be interesting to see if the back is just plain or not...
But yeah, despite my serious dislike for the all-overs, I can see this buying snapped up. Would look cool under a Denim jacket.
Despite aiming to hit some Sgt Pepper highs it was always beyond even the wilder side of PG to expect to see some lurid satin army style tunics. Instead we've got a l/s t-shirt style giving the impression of the tunic, a nice subtle way of referencing.
Looks like this style should also be offered in a black colour.
Now as we all know, PG have dabbled with The Beatles in the past with their Magical Mystery Tour range, they touch back into this with imagery lifted from a single of that album.
The same trick is pulled with a Get Back single sleeve lifted for another t-shirt print, this time using the 1969 Italian sleeve graphics. Colour choice on this one gives it a pretty cool 70's vibe IMHO.
One of the styles I really like is the monochromatic cut out style of the Fab Four in their Sgt Pepper garb. Yep, looks like a band t-shirt, but you know what, it's cool and it'll be getting bagged if I can catch my size.
PG return again to the European sleeve designs for this one, using the Dutch sleeve art from the Lady Madonna single for the design, expanding out the stars motif.
I really hope PG don't change these designs before launch as there are a couple of nice design touches. There is a new Beatles inspired internal back yoke which looks smart. Better than that is the use of a rib-collar on the t-shirt neck. PG get a lot of complaints about their gaping neck design, a rib-collar for me just looks and sits far better.
Before The Beatles decided to allow their drug trips to influence their clothing choices they were well known for cutting a very sharp figure. Nice to see PG offering a smart option to tie into that.
Not easy to see, but it looks like PG have returned to some of the earlier tailoring styles from a while back with a sharp knitted tie here, very nice. And to pair it off a straight up smart white shirt.
When I first previewed this the little white PG logo at the tie knot caught a few of us out! Sadly it just looks to be the plastic circle bit from the swingtag...which is kinda a pheeew moment, can you imagine trying to tie it to get the logo in the right place!
In terms of Outerwear there seems to be a host of really nice new pieces on the way. The first teaser of the range was the opinion splitting Quoasis friendly badged denim jacket.
We've also seen sight of the Parkas in the range, and man they look to come up smart.
The style on the right is of course the one we saw LG sporting a version of a few months back. The one on the left looks to be a bit of a take down on the Fake London style as sported by, you've guessed it..............LG.
These look pretty full on with fur/fleece linings. Could be excellent Winter time choices. Personally I'd have the pair, but some full on negotiating is going to have take place for any more Outerwear to enter the house.
Coming back into the PG wardrobe is the Frock design, or so it seems from their design preview sheet.
Also among the new designs are references to the Sgt Pepper sleeve design, such as the Welcome The Rolling Stones jumper as worn by the doll at the bottom right of the image.
And of course the famous Drum logo is replicated, this time on to what looks like a heavily washed sweatshirt design
There are lots of shirts, kaftans and a whole host more styles to come in the range, as shown as these design preview sheets.
Above, we can see the denim jacket styles, looks like one will be full on badge while another might be restricted to a more subtle style with just some front badges. Similar to the Hendrix range we look to be getting a Blazer with an all over design.
A really smart Military style looking jacket next to some Overcoat
Moving on to the middle line we have the Parka, again like the Denim seems to come in a mad and not quite so made style. The jacket in the middle is interesting, is it some sort of furry Walrus design? Then we have a cropped Parka sitting next to the Frock Coats.
Bottom we have what looks to be either jeans or cords that PG always trot out in their themed ranges as opposed to having them as continuation. A pair of full on striped trousers followed by very Harrison-esque denim options. One style looking to be boot-cut which ties in very nicely to the theme. Could this be the end of the super skinny half-mast denim fad...
Then on to the next batch of images...
Top row is mainly the t-shirt images we've previewed further up, other than the black one centre-right, which looks to simply feature the Beatles floral tribute from the record sleeve.
Second row features the nice drop-T t-shorts, not sure if the darker one is black or navy. Smart either way. Middle we get PG let loose with the chemistry as we get some full on floral mayhem. Then rounded off with the tunic styles as previewed above, thinking the black one looks rather smart. They also seem to feature some sort of medal/badge over on the left of the chest.
Third down and we're into polo shirt territory. We all wondered what logo would be plonked on the ubiquitous polo style, and it's the Sgt Pepper drum! Next to that we get a design with what looks to be Yellow Submarine styles Beatles heads, but it is very hard to make out. Then closing off the line we get another nice monochromatic design.
The bottom line, well, I doubt I need to waffle on, you can all see the goodness.
Right, preview done, looks good doesn't it. I think the range likely offers something for both PG fans and Beatles fans, and for folks like me who are fans of both there is plenty to think about dropping some pennies on.
A nice little touch is the use of newly designed Beatles swing tag, giving the range a little uniqueness.
I'm sure PG have had to sell some internal organs to pay for The Beatles licensing, but after looking at this range I'm pretty sure they're going to turn a pretty penny on this range.
Lots to enjoy, lots of pennies being put aside for this one. I think the design team have done a top job here with the source material I said before Sgt Pepper would be a tougher gig then Magical Mystery Tour as all you had for source material was a record sleeve.
I think they've done well to juxtapose the old and the new to come up with something really pretty interesting. Won't appeal to all, but then what does?
A far better than solid range, can't wait to see this in the flesh and hopefully grab some pieces.
Peace&Love&mercy, theSub