Sgt. Pepper merchandise collection debuts at Selfridges

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Jul 19, 2017

The promotional push linked to influential Beatles album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band on its 50th anniversary hit Selfridges on Wednesday. The retailer hosted the launch of a merchandise collection featuring Beatles/Sgt. Pepper imagery.

The collection, produced under licence from Apple Corps, is available exclusively in the high-end department store’s London, Birmingham and Manchester stores as well as on its website.

The debut comes as part of the store’s Music Matters campaign, the latest in a long series its themed merchandise stories, which sees it celebrating the links between music and style for the summer and early autumn season. The Music Matters theme debuted on June 26 with the Sgt. Pepper launch giving it a publicity boost this week. The theme runs until October 18.

The merchandise comes from Bravado, the brand management company that is part of Universal Music Group. It includes short and long-sleeved T-shirts, hoodies, a denim jacket and sweats with colour or black and white images taken from the album’s famous cover.

The product is a little hard to find in Selfridges’ Oxford Street, London, branch, being tucked away discreetly in a small space on the menswear floor. However, the publicity boost it has received from various media and bloggers on launch day is likely to drive traffic to the space.

The award-winning album launched in 1967 and was in the UK chart for nearly three years, with six months spent in number one position. The 50th anniversary has seen it relaunched, and again topping the UK album chart. A 50th anniversary special edition includes two tracks that were released as singles in 1967 but that had originally been intended to appear on the album. Sgt. Pepper sits at the top of Rolling Stone magazine's definitive list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.