Dougie Millings, 88; Tailor for Beatles

London tailor Dougie Millings had already carved out a successful career making stage clothes for Cliff Richard, Tommy Steele and other show business clients when he received a phone call in 1963 from Brian Epstein, manager of a rock ‘n’ roll foursome that was about to change the face of popular music.

“Brian had called to say he was coming by with his Liverpool proteges, the Beatles--with an A,” Millings recalled years later. When John, Paul, George and Ringo arrived at Millings’ workroom on Old Compton Street in London’s bohemian Soho district, Epstein told Millings he wanted something as distinctive as Richard’s signature white suit, “only different.”

Millings, who came up with the round-collared suits that became one of the Fab Four’s trademarks and earned him a footnote in the history of rock ‘n’ roll, died Sept. 20. He was 88.

Millings and his son, Gordon, went on to make 500 outfits for the Beatles, including the wardrobe for their first American tour in 1964.

The well-known show-business tailor’s other celebrity clients included Tom Jones, the Everly Brothers, the Beach Boys, Sammy Davis Jr., Steve McQueen and Warren Beatty.

The son of a civil servant, Millings was born in Manchester in 1913. He studied at Leith Academy before apprenticing as a tailor in Edinburgh. He began his career as a tailor’s cutter in London in the 1930s.

Millings served as a dispatch rider during World War II. After the war, he ran the tailoring department at Austins, a London menswear shop, where he met rock ‘n’ roll manager Tito Burns in the mid-1950s. Burns, who launched singer Dusty Springfield’s career, introduced Millings to Cliff Richard and the Shadows, the first of his many show-business clients.

By 1958, Millings had established his own business and moved into his workshop in Soho adjacent to the Two I’s coffeehouse, where Steele, Adam Faith and other singers performed. The location provided a constant source of new show-business clients.

By the time Millings received the phone call from Epstein in 1963, the tailor to the stars had outgrown his cramped ground-floor workroom on Old Compton Street and was about to move into a three-story shop on nearby Great Pulteney Street.

Millings based the famous Beatle suit, which he made in several versions and in different colors, on a steward’s jacket.

“I’d been experimenting with round collars,” Millings told the Sunday Telegraph in London in 1998. “I did a sketch of one, showed it to Brian, and that was that. I’ve never claimed to have entirely ‘invented’ it; I just came up with the suggestion.”

Among the outfits he produced for the Beatles’ first American tour in 1964 were lightweight wool and mohair suits, in dark gray and dark blue, with velvet collars. Each of the Beatles was provided with half a dozen of each suit.

Millings, who had supplemented his income in the 1930s by singing in a dance band, had an easy rapport with the Beatles, who called him “Dad” and gave him a cameo role in “A Hard Day’s Night,” the Beatles’ debut film, which depicts a “typical” day in the group’s life. Most of his work in front of the camera, however, ended up on the cutting-room floor.

Billed as “A Tailor,” Millings, according to “The Ultimate Beatles Encyclopedia” “had to wear a frown of frustration due to his unsuccessful attempts to measure the group, because they were never able to stand still.”

Millings also made the suits for the original waxworks figures of the Beatles at Madame Tussaud’s wax museum in London. In 1972, he made the touring costumes for Paul McCartney’s new band, Wings. And in 1974 he made the suits worn on the cover of Wings’ “Band on the Run” album.

In 2000, Millings and his son launched Beatles Style Ltd., which produced copies of eight suits the Beatles wore on tour and in films, including the “Soldier Boy” suit featured in the movie “Help.”

Millings is survived by his wife, Lilian; a daughter; and his son, who continues to operate the family tailoring business.