Boyish designer who became the toast of New York with his Mod London style
MEMBERS of a community art class in Blackpool were happy to have an addition to their number. Gerald McCann, who was in his 80s and living with Alzheimer’s disease, was being cared for by his cousin Ann Walls, who thought it would be good for him to resume drawing and painting, subjects he had enjoyed while growing up in the town before and during the war.
Christine Riches, who ran the class, recalled McCann as a handsome man, adding that he was ‘‘smart-casual in appearance [with] the biggest smile and was very polite and friendly’’. As the mainly elderly students chatted, it soon became clear that McCann – who has died aged 88 – had enjoyed great success and met many fascinating people in his 60 years away.
There were tales of friendship with the artist Francis Bacon; of the Beatles wearing his designs in their films; of Calvin Klein coming over in a restaurant to thank him for inspiring 12 new outfits; and of helping Mary Quant to get started with her Bazaar boutique in Kings Rd, Chelsea, in 1955 (‘‘I did the clothes, Mary did the hats and belts’’).
No sooner were the swinging 60s under way in London than McCann, a pioneer of the Mod look, was scooped up by the American market. ‘‘A buyer from Bloomingdale’s, Ida Sciolino, came to London and loved my things, and she also brought some fabric and said, ‘Make something up for me’, and of course it ended up on the cover of Glamour magazine and immediately everybody swooped down,’’ he said in 2006.
‘‘The American manufacturers came to London and said, ‘We’d like to meet you’, and there were dinners and contracts, and the next thing I knew I was there. You know when they move, it’s like lightning. It’s showtime! You’re on stage and there’s no room for error because the amounts at stake are enormous, 140,000 of one style.’’
When Bloomingdale’s opened a Gerald McCann department, the buyer complained that she had eight customers for every coat on the racks.
McCann also spoke of the relentless pace. ‘‘I would go to New York for three weeks, do a collection, visit stores, in New York and outside, in Philadelphia, Detroit and Michigan,’’ he said. ‘‘I flew in a private plane. They were very professional and they got down to work. I was very impressed, especially when I came back to England, it was like treacle; you had to slow down because the pace in New York was really fast.’’
Gerald McCann was born in Fleetwood, Lancashire, of Irish and Welsh descent, to which he attributed his many superstitions, including patting the wooden arm of his chair or blowing on his crossed fingers.
He was accepted in 1951 at the Royal
College of Art in London, where his contemporaries included David Sassoon and Gina Fratini.
College founder Madge Garland’s connections helped the student McCann to secure a job as a designer for the chain store Marks & Spencer, ‘‘which was very grand’’, he said, adding that one of his designs became a bestseller. ‘‘One time I was sent up to Durham to a factory, and suddenly I was called back,’’ he said. ‘‘My dress had sold a million copies, so I had a key to the executive dining room and a cheque from Lord Marks, and everybody smiled wherever I went.’’
The boyish designer with a clipped British accent soon became the toast of New York. ‘‘Blond and charming Gerald McCann is the first defector from the ranks of London’s young Mod designers,’’ trumpeted one American newspaper in 1965. ‘‘His new PostMod collection could have been designed by an architectural student. The lines are clean and classic and the proportions carefully balanced.’’
After commuting between London and New York from 1965 to 1973, he settled into a career on Seventh Ave. Royalties from one of his designs, for Larry Levine, one of the biggest coat manufacturers in New York, ran into five figures in the first year alone.
Although McCann liked to describe his designs as ‘‘beer budget’’, his tastes were strictly from the ‘‘champagne list’’ and he enjoyed name-dropping to wide-eyed Americans. One newspaper in 1975 reported him saying: ‘‘The Duke and Duchess of Bedford invited me to a costume party at Paris, France . . . I wore a smashing pink velvet suit to the prince’s birthday party . . . All my friends have titles. Princes are twoa-penny in Europe.’’
The death of his father brought McCann back to Britain in 1991 to be closer to his ill mother. He tried to revive his career in London, designing clothes for Fenwick, Harrods and House of Fraser, and specialising in the ‘‘little black dress’’. Yet increasingly he fell on hard times, especially after his relationship with Andre Moussoulos, his business and personal partner, ended.
In 2012, and in poor health, McCann returned to Blackpool. Four years later he was the subject of an exhibition in Leeds where there were flashes of the old showman. It was as if he was back at the catwalk with his latest collection. something that he described in 1965 as a nerve-racking experience. ‘‘It’s like exposing one’s ego,’’ he said, although he would add: ‘‘I always feel that the best dress is the one just about to happen.’’ –