You can always be sure you'll have an interesting conversation about music with someone wearing Fred Perry, writes Michael Taylor.

I tested out this theory with a couple of friends of mine last weekend. It wasn’t an entirely random selection, we’d been for a hike in the hills and had talked music and gigs for a good chunk of the time. 

Ian and Andrea had also bought me a red Fred Perry t-shirt for my birthday back in 2006, which I still have.

They told me a great story about signing up for Northern Soul dancing lessons at the Night And Day Cafe in Manchester. Apparently 90 per cent of the people there, men and women, were wearing Fred Perry.

I mentioned in a recent column about the mod revival of 1979 was dominated by young people wearing Fred Perry. But it was also a staple of many more musically rooted trends too. Skinheads, indie bands, Britpop, Acid Jazz and ravers.

It is remarkable how the worlds of music and fashion are so tightly entwined. Neil and I have our twin obsessions with different types of music and with certain iconic menswear brands. Some have their roots in the outdoors, in sport, certain urban scenes, but so many have a strong link to music.

A mate of ours called Gary Aspden was hired by the marketing department at Adidas and set about connecting the three stripe brand to their rich cultural and musical heritage.

The German company was comfortable doing deals with sports stars and teams. The tennis player Ivan Lendl springs to mind as a real Adidas icon, but then you can’t think of the West Germany team of 1974 and Argentina in 1978 without seeing the three stripes down the sleeves.

Gary’s great skill was linking how musicians were also huge Adidas wearers as well. Bob Marley, David Bowie and Run DMC. 

He also knew that bands like the Manchester wave of the early 90s also had one foot on the musical stage and another on the football terraces. 

What both had in common was that those feet would have the Adidas trefoil. It was something that the sports retail world clocked on to as well, with the Tameside founded company JD Sports fully servicing this booming demographic.

But the fashion brand that really connected with music fans was Fred Perry. The distinctive laurel wreath emblem on the chest was started by the Stockport-born three times Wimbledon tennis champion, Fred Perry in 1952. 

He was one of the best dressed and best looking sportsmen of his era, he exuded class and poise, stepping out with actresses and models, claiming: “I’m a great believer in trying to look the part. It’s a fetish with me.”

The meshing of celebrity and sport also placed him outside the tennis establishment and his remarkable hat trick of Wimbledon titles in the 1930s, ten majors around the world, securing the David Cup for his country and all this on the back of earlier success in table tennis! Yet he wasn’t truly acknowledged by the stuffy blazers of the Lawn Tennis Association. 

In his 1984 book he said: “Some elements in the All England Club and the LTA looked down on me as a hot-headed, outspoken, tearaway rebel, not quite the class of chap they really wanted to see winning Wimbledon, even if he was English”.

Remarkably the statue of him at Wimbledon wasn’t erected until the 1984. 

Yet youth subcultures - and old rockers like us - have their own far more sustainable tribute to the great man.

You can listen to Michael Taylor and Neil Summers on Music Therapy on Tameside Radio 103.6FM on Sunday evenings from 9pm to 11pm. Click here to subscribe and catch up on previous shows.

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