Item 2017.353.2 - Mr Fish Gold Kaftan

Mr Fish was a menswear shop founded in 1966 by Michael Fish (b. 1940) and his business partner Barry Sainsbury (1929–99), the grandson of John Sainsbury, the supermarket chain’s founder. Michael Fish trained as a shirtmaker and spent nine years at New & Lingwood and then Turnbull & Asser designing shirts for a variety of clients, including actor Sean Connery’s dress shirts for his first James Bond film, Dr. No (1962). Located at 17 Clifford Street, off Savile Row in London’s Mayfair, the shop specialized in flamboyant menswear, particularly bespoke shirts and ties. In 1966, a revival of extremely wide men’s ties reminiscent of those worn in the 1930s became known as kipper ties, which Mr Fish claimed to have coined as a pun on his surname.

Mr Fish became known for their male celebrity clients, including Noël Coward, Lord Snowdon, Sammy Davis Jr, James Fox, Mick Jagger, Lord Lichfield and Duke Ellington. In 1969, Mick Jagger wore a long frilled white Mr Fish tunic shirt for the Rolling Stones’s free concert at Hyde Park, while David Bowie wore a ‘man-dress’ designed by Mr Fish on the cover of his 1971 album The Man Who Sold the World. Mr Fish also designed Muhammad Ali’s boxing robe for his 1974 ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ bout with George Foreman. While the business flourished, with its mixture of celebrity clientele and young aristocracy, the withdrawal of Barry Sainsbury’s financial backing in 1969 led Michael Fish to find new investment from Captain Fred Barker, who then shut the Clifford Street shop. Mr Fish briefly reopened after investment from rock managers Robert Stigwood and David Shaw in new premises in Mount Street in 1974, but shut later that year after a fire. The brand was revived in 2016 by investor David Mason, producing a range of shirts inspired by the Mr Fish originals.
Sources: Geoffrey Aquilina Ross, The Day of the Peacock: Style for Men 1963–1973 (London: V&A Publishing, 2011); The Observer.