Deirdre Kelly

What’s New


Welcome to my website! I’m delighted you could visit. Here you’ll find all kinds of information about who I am and what I do — arts criticism, investigative reporting, magazine writing and editing and publishing books. My titles include Paris Times Eight, a memoir using eight trips to Paris, France, to map a coming of age story, and Ballerina: Sex, Scandal and Suffering Behind The Symbol of Perfection, a backstage history of the dancer from the court of Louis XIV to the present day. My latest, Fashioning the Beatles: The Looks that Shook the World, came out in the fall of 2023, published by Sutherland House Books. It’s available for sale at most bookstores as well as online where it’s listed as No. 1 bestseller on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.ca/Fashioning-Beatles-Looks-Shook-World/dp/1990823327

BREAKING NEWS!

On March, 7, 2024, World Book Day, it was announced that Fashioning The Beatles: The Looks That Shook The World is a Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards Finalist in the category of Pop Culture.

According to the press release, from over 2,400 submissions across 55 categories, Foreword’s U.S.-based editors selected approximately 12 Finalists per genre. Finalist books will now be sent to individual librarians and booksellers, who will determine the Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Honorable Mention winners. Stay tuned!

My Fashioning The Beatles events so far:

September 12, 2023: New York City — McNally-Jackson Books (Seaport location), U.S. book launch

September 26, 2023: Toronto — Liss Gallery on Cumberland Ave., Canadian book launch

September 27, 2023: Ottawa — Perfect Books, book signing event.

October 4, 2023: Toronto Public Library, Don Mills Branch, author talk and book signing

October 12, 2023: Drom Taberna, Toronto: Jazz singer Ori Dagan presents The Beatles Songbook! with guest Deirdre Kelly signing copies of Fashioning The Beatles, 458 Queen St. W., 6-8pm

October 16, 2023: Classi Learning online author talk

October 18, 2023: Holland & Sherry, 31 Savile Row, London, England, 6 to 8pm, U.K. book launch

October 21, 2023: Thornbury, Ont., Jessica’s Book Nook and the L. E. Shore Public Library, author talk and book signing:

https://www.thebluemountains.ca/community-culture/happening-blue-mountains/events-calendar/author-talk-deirdre-kelly

November 16, 2023: Vancouver, B.C., Cross & Crows Books, author Deirdre Kelly in conversation with Vancouver fashion historian Ivan Sayers, 7 to 830pm

November 19, 2023: Cambridge, Ont., Fashion History Museum, “A Mod Tea Party,” author talk and book signing, 2 to 3:30 pm

https://www.fashionhistorymuseum.com

November 24, 2023: Meaford Public Library, author talk and book signing, 2pm

https://www.meaford.ca/en/explore-play/adult-programs.aspx

February 6, 2024: George Brown College, Fashion Department, author talk and book signing

February 9-11, 2024: Fest for Beatles Fans, TWA Hotel at John F. Kennedy Airport, New York, author book signing and live on-stage interview with Beatles’ insider Jenny Boyd

February 12, 2024: Toronto Metropolitan University, author talk

UPCOMING:

August 7, 2024: Toronto Public Library, Runnymede branch, author talk and book signing

August 9 to 11: Fest in Chicago, book selling and signing

November 5, 2024: Fashion Institute of Technology, New York City, author talk and book signing

What Fashioning The Beatles is about….

John, Paul, George, and Ringo were more than great musicians: they were the quintessential fashion icons of one of the most exciting and memorable fashion eras of all time. From their starts in black leather through Sgt. Pepper to Nehru collars and psychedelia, the Beatles used clothing to express their individual and group identities and, especially, to grow their following.

They did it without benefit of stylists or consultants, making their own rules and changing their looks as many as five times a year to keep a few steps ahead of the crowd in the tumultuous, fashion-obsessed sixties. More than fifty years after their break-up, their style continues to animate the collections of some of the world’s leading designers, including Thom Browne, John Varvatos, Anna Sui, Tom Ford, Gucci’s Alessandro Michele and, yes, Stella McCartney. Fashioning the Beatles, the first in-depth look at their sartorial legacy, demonstrates that their inimitable style was not an incidental by-product of their fame but an integral part of their act and a key to their globe-spanning success.

Read what reviewers are saying:

“Rich with detail, this book will immerse rock and fashion history buffs alike in a satisfying intersection of subjects. A must for collections with a particular focus on popular music or historical dress.” – Library Journal

“For the first time, the sensational clothes and costumes flaunted by the Fab Four are seen through the lens of a cultural critic who is a noted expert on the art of performance.” – Bronwyn Cosgrave, editor British Vogue

“You’d think, at this point, there was nothing more to say about the Beatles. You’d be wrong. Deirdre Kelly’s book on the Fab Four as fashion icons and OG influencers tracks their evolving taste as it interacted with the volcanic shifts in aesthetics of the 1960s and 1970s.” – Nelson George, Post-Soul Nation, The Michael Jackson Story, Hip Hop America

“Deirdre Kelly has written the ultimate Beatles’ style book.” – Jonathan Walford, Sixties Fashion and The Seductive Shoe

There’s more coverage here:

The South China Morning Post:
https://amp.scmp.com/magazines/style/lifestyle/leisure/article/3234670/fashioning-beatles-deirdre-kellys-fab-four-book-chronicles-john-paul-george-and-ringos-lasting

The New York Sun: “[I]n her exhaustive and engagingly written study of the Beatles’s sartorial history — “Fashioning the Beatles”— Deirdre Kelly has a great deal to say about how fashion was an important, if not central, concern of the group. At a time when many North American males were bogged down in boxy suits and crew cuts, the Beatles arrived and conquered North America with clean lines and mop tops, completely transforming the look of a generation.”

Read the full review here:

https://www.nysun.com/article/how-the-fab-four-rocked-the-fashion-world

Salon.com: “In many ways, Deirdre Kelly’s “Fashioning the Beatles” is long overdue. We take it for granted, as a kind of pop-music commonplace, that the Fab Four transformed rock ‘n’ roll’s sartorial style during the 1960s. Subtitled as “The Looks that Shook the World,” Kelly’s book takes a deep dive into the Beatles’ fashion sense, arguing that the group’s image was not only integral to their success, but the self-conscious product of John, Paul, George and Ringo’s interest in fomenting change.”

Read writer Ken Womack’s full review here:

https://www.salon.com/2023/09/19/fashioning-the-beatles-deirdre-kelly/


Foreword Reviews: ”Across their time as a band, [Deirdre] Kelly makes it clear how much the Beatles influenced music, fashion, art, and commerce, even becoming the first artists to launch their own brands and boutiques. And the band’s changing fashions are illustrated with precision throughout; the book makes use of standout photographs that are embellished with fresh context.” —

Read the full review here:

https://www.forewordreviews.com/reviews/fashioning-the-beatles/

ELSEWHERE….

Fashioning The Beatles makes the Globe and Mail’s BEST BOOKS 2023 gift guide list, published in the Saturday paper on November 25, 2023:

It’s also named a TOP 10 BOOK OF 2023 by the Vancouver Sun:

https://vancouversun.com/entertainment/books/top-picks-for-the-book-lovers-on-your-list/wcm/5b973ea4-cfef-4b9f-b997-9f476c09bcf9/amp/

Io Donna magazine, distributed across Italy via the country’s biggest newspaper, Corriere della Sera:

WWD put Fashioning the Beatles on its list of the Top Men’s Style & Fashion books:

https://wwd.com/menswear-news/mens-lifestyle/new-mens-fashion-books-fall-1235755578/


The Inside Hook called Fashioning The Beatles is a must-read:

https://www.insidehook.com/article/books/books-you-should-read-september-2023

UK’s Men’s Style named Fashioning The Beatles a Top Style Book of 2023:

https://www.menswearstyle.co.uk/2023/08/04/best-style-books/11520

Carl Thompson covered my analysis of John Lennon’s white suit on the cover of Abbey Road:

https://www.carlthompson.co.uk/further-reading-blogs/2023/12/13/who-really-made-john-lennons-white-suit-seen-on-the-cover-of-abbey-road

Canadian cultural critic Donald Brackett said this about Fashioning The Beatles on Substack:

“Deirdre Kelly’s masterful and insightful documenting of their dramatic clothing coolness, Fashioning the Beatles: The Looks that Shook the World, now finally addresses their nearly supernatural chic and how it paralleled the shockingly inspiring evolutionary leaps they took in the art of the popular song. It’s a literary gift of the highest order.”

Read the full review here:

https://donaldbrackett.substack.com/p/dressed-for-success?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1173042&post_id=139370413&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=33uhe2&utm_medium=email

I did an interview with the award-winning critic Dorothy Woodend in Vancouver-based news journal The Tyee:

https://thetyee.ca/Culture/2024/01/01/Why-Beatles-Made-Us-Look/

I was also reviewed in UK fashion magazine The Bite where writer Jada Brookes said that Fashioning The Beatles “provides an in-depth analysis of the sartorial impact and legacy of the Fab Four….”

https://www.thebitemag.com/issue34/31/

Plastic EP in Melbourne, Australia, interviewed me for his TV show and podcast. Look for it on a YouTube.


Listen to me talk about Fashioning The Beatles on CBC-Radio:

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-1349-commotion-with-elamin-abdelmahmoud/clip/16010700-how-the-beatles-style-impacted-enduring-legacy

On the USA’s When They Was Fab podcast:

https://whentheywasfab.podbean.com

On the UK’s Beatles Books podcast with host Joe Wisbey:

https://beatlesbooks.podbean.com

On the USA’s BC The Beatles Podcast:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/bc-the-beatles/id1408900880?i=1000641952713

On Canada’s Abbey Lane Beatles Podcast:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1607080/14350109

For ongoing updates, go to my Deirdre Kelly Facebook page, follow me on X (Twitter)— @deirdre_kelly — and on Instagram — @kellydeirdre

For media requests and other assistance contact Serina Mercier at Sutherland House Books: serina@sutherlandhousebooks.com

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