Freddie Mercury's 'Crazy Little Thing Called Love' black leather jacket, worn 1978 – early 1980s

Freddie Mercury's 'Crazy Little Thing Called Love' black leather jacket, worn 1978 – early 1980s

Worn for tour, stage and video, 1978 – early 1980s, with a ripped white T-shirt Worn In ‘The Great Pretender’ Video, 1987 and black vinyl trousers, 1980s

A black leather biker jacket, the padded shoulders and elbows with diagonal stitching with inset leather panels with leather lacing (the long laces since shortened) either side of the waistband, gold tone zips to pockets, cuffs and front fastening, press stud fastenings to collar and lapels with single press stud to back of collar, black satin lining, unlabelled

A white cotton T-shirt, the sleeves cut off and the front ripped down the middle, unlabelled

A pair of black vinyl jean-style trousers, the exterior waistband labelled ‘King Jeans / Original Cowboy Style’, the right back pocket with ‘King’ label and ‘King’ tab, both with gold lettering on black, with original garment tag attached to label [unworn] but identical to those worn by Freddie on stage during this period

(qty 3)

This jacket heralds Freddie’s change in style in the late 1970s. The earliest appearance seems to be on the 'Jazz' North American tour, October to December, 1978, seen in the famous Neal Preston photo of the band posing on the tarmac in front of their four-engined tour plane, Britannia; Preston also captures Freddie with this jacket backstage with the band and two of the ‘Supermen’ who alternately appeared on stage holding Freddie aloft.

Freddie also wore it (probably most notably) in the ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ video, 1979, and during the brief ‘Crazy’ tour from 22 November – 27 December, which followed the single’s release; most photographs from this period show Freddie wearing the jacket bare-chested or with his Superman vest (see lot 200). During this same year, Freddie wore it for the Royal Ballet Gala on 7 October, when he performed ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’, first wearing the jacket with a black sequin catsuit, and then with the silver sequin catsuit (see lot 54). It was also worn for the photoshoot with Christopher Hopper for the front cover of The Game album, 1980.

‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ became an instant hit, peaking at No. 2 in the U.K. charts and earning the distinction of being the group’s first No.1 single on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in 1980.

The white T-shirt included in this lot is from ‘The Great Pretender’ video, 1987 and was used to recreate the scene from the ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ video where Freddie’s white T-shirt is ripped by one of the female dancers - in ‘The Great Pretender’ it is Roger Taylor, wearing his backing singer gold costume, who rips Freddie’s T-shirt.

See lot 159 for a black and white publicity photograph of Queen from the ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ video showing Freddie wearing this jacket.

See lot 59, Polaroid No. 88 for Freddie in Japan wearing a very similar jacket; the details are hard to see, but the front fastening zip matches the jacket in this lot, and the Hawaiian shirt in lot 2103

See also lot 209, for the jacket worn on the album insert for The Game.

LITERATURE

Queen’s Greatest Pix, Quartet Books, 1981, pp.44 & 45, Neal Preston’s photograph of Queen standing in front of their tour plane ‘Britannia’

Queen, The Neal Preston Photographs, Reel Art Press, 2020, pp. 2-3, 61, 99 & 109.

Queen, The Complete Illustrated Lyrics’, Backbeat Books, 2012, pp. 16, 17 & 66 (illus.)

Queen, The Ultimate Illustrated History Of The Crown Kings Of Rock, Phil Sutcliffe, Voyageur Press, 2009, pp. 141 & 142 (illus.) – the latter a photo of Freddie wearing this jacket on stage at Madison Square Garden, New York, 28 – 30 September 1980

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