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The Fate of the Dragon Suits


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The Dragon suits were designed by an LA designer named CoCo.

Do you have proof of this, or some sort of source? I really don't mean to be a dick, but that's a little meager.

To make it even more meager, someone recently told me that the woman's real name wasn't Coco - that was her nickname, after the designer Coco Chanel.

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To make it even more meager, someone recently told me that the woman's real name wasn't Coco - that was her nickname, after the designer Coco Chanel.

Seems like I'm missing out on something... Can anybody show me a link or a source?

Sorry I got it wrong they only had them on loan, here is a good link any way

Thanks.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I thought this suits realley fit him best.During the Earls Court perf. you can even see some astrolog. symbols being placed on his legs.

Jimmy was always into the " audiovisual" art.So his suit were not just a fashion thing.

It is intresting to see that he changed the main colour from black into white 1977.Why did he do this after so many years?

Some people see an analogy of him never wearing the suits anymore and the change of his creativity 1977.

So the title of this topic "Fate of the Dragon Suits " suits very well.

But though I missed the suits in Knebworth and later tours I think he was a great, magicall artist right from

the beginning of Led Zep when he was never wearing a Dragon suit onstage.

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Sorry I got it wrong they only had them on loan, here is a good link any way

'Unfortunately we can't wear things like that because we do a lot of running around so we need stuff that stretches and is highly washable'. That comment made me laugh because we all know that Jimmy only had the one white poppy suit and he wore it for the majority of the dates on the '77 tour, which was coincidentally when he was at his most active on stage. Apparently it was just hung up to dry after a show! Sweat dripping from it and all.

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Thanks for this info.Nevertheless it is a question why he used this outfit onstage.

Well, he told the press it was simply meant to be shock. Mind you Keith Moon, Keith Richards, motorcycle gangs and punks in London - among many others - had already done so on and offstage years before. He may recall he also donned a white fedora later in the show, leading me to believe his attire was a unique homage to Chicago's long-standing reputation as a haven for gangsters, mobsters, and assorted hoodlums.

Edited by SteveAJones
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Well, he told the press it was simply meant to be shock. Mind you Keith Moon, Keith Richards, motorcycle gangs and punks in London - among many others - had already done so on and offstage years before. He may recall he also donned a white fedora later in the show, leading me to believe his attire was a unique homage to Chicago's long-standing reputation as a haven for gangsters, mobsters, and assorted hoodlums.

It was spine-straightening when Jimmy appeared in the Stormtrooper outfit on that Sunday night. It would be interesting to know what the other band members thought before they went onstage that night. Maybe a future question for Richard Cole.

The white poppy outfit really shimmered with all the lighting they had back then. So the visuals probably had something to do with it and Jimmy being so scrawny it hid that fact . White supposedly makes you look fuller than anything black.

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I was reading Neal Preston's visual biography of Led Zeppelin and he said Jimmy wore his SS outfit more than just that one show in Chicago. He said he remembers he wore it to gigs and out-on-the-town.

I've only seen photos of Jimmy wearing the SS outfit from the Chicago 77 show and on the Starship. There's also photos of Jimmy on the Starship wearing lighter-brown jodphurs and a bomber jacket but no SS cap.

And, sorry, but I've got to clarify something. People talk about the 73 cosmic pants or the 75 black dragon suit as if that was his standard outfit for those tours.

WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!

Let's start with the 1973 US tour. For most of the tour, Jimmy's outfit rotated among these choices: 1) plain white suit with dress shirt or t-shirt underneath; 2) brocaded jacket with blue jeans(he wore the exact same thing in 1972 at the LA Forum...only difference was that in 1972 he wore white sneakers and in 1973 he had changed to his iconic slip on dress shoes); and 3) some type of zippered windbreaker jacket with the white suit pants or blue jeans.

From all the evidence, it appears that he wore the "cosmic outfit"(not to be confused with the black dragon suit) only at the end of the tour in New York. And while he wore the pants at all three shows, it seems that he wore two different tops during the 3 nights in NY...the brocaded top and the spangly jacket with the silver lapels.

This suggests that Jimmy, knowing that they were going to film the NY shows, wanted something a little more visually spectacular to wear, and whether it was his lady friend Coco in LA or some other person handy with needle and thread, the outfit apparently wasn't ready until New York.

Oh, and the 1973 Euro tour seems to either feature the white suit or top with blue jeans combo mentioned above...definitely no cosmic outfit in Europe that year.

Now as to the 1975 US tour, let me just cut to the chase right off the bat: the iconic black dragon suit did not make its appearance at all on this tour! For one night in LA, Jimmy wore the black dragon pants, and THAT WAS IT! For the top he wore the same brocaded top he wore in 1973(as seen in the movie TSRTS).

All the other dates of the 1975 US tour primarily featured jeans and t-shirt combos; the 1973 cosmic outfit; the white suit pants with any manner of various colourful button-down shirts; a new black brocaded jacket that he paired with either the white pants or the cosmic pants.

The ONLY 1975 shows that Jimmy wore the complete black dragon outfit were the Earl's Court gigs...which coincidentally were being multi-tracked and were being filmed(or at least video-taped), which again suggests that Jimmy felt something visually striking was needed for these homecoming shows.

And when you compare how cool he looked at Earl's Court with the somewhat pedestrian look of the early 1975 shows, Chicago i.e., it seems Jimmy didn't really put a lot of forethought into what he was going to wear on tour.

Even in 1977, where he mostly alternated between the white poppy suit and the black dragon suit, if you look carefully, the white suit started out pretty unadorned...especially the pants. It wasn't until about the midway point of the tour that the suit was completely embroidered.

As for the black dragon suit, all you need to know about Jimmy's dramatic weight loss between the 1975 and 77 tours is the fact that he now needed to wear a belt with the pants to keep them from sliding off his hips...and he also now wore a black t-shirt underneath.

Oh, and one last thing...that suit in the Victoria and Albert Museum? I have yet to see ANY photo where Jimmy is wearing that outfit. I am not saying it wasn't made for him, just that I doubt it was worn on stage.

Edited by Strider
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Strider, the suit in the V&A was not finished and not worn on tour, as I said it was a bit of a work in progress.

Oh when I saw that suit at the V&A I thought must be Marc Bolan's , Until I read the info !

The V&A site must have more details if the suit is still on display & it's history.

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I've only seen photos of Jimmy wearing the SS outfit from the Chicago 77 show and on the Starship. There's also photos of Jimmy on the Starship wearing lighter-brown jodphurs and a bomber jacket but no SS cap.

And, sorry, but I've got to clarify something. People talk about the 73 cosmic pants or the 75 black dragon suit as if that was his standard outfit for those tours.

WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!

Let's start with the 1973 US tour. For most of the tour, Jimmy's outfit rotated among these choices: 1) plain white suit with dress shirt or t-shirt underneath; 2) brocaded jacket with blue jeans(he wore the exact same thing in 1972 at the LA Forum...only difference was that in 1972 he wore white sneakers and in 1973 he had changed to his iconic slip on dress shoes); and 3) some type of zippered windbreaker jacket with the white suit pants or blue jeans.

From all the evidence, it appears that he wore the "cosmic outfit"(not to be confused with the black dragon suit) only at the end of the tour in New York. And while he wore the pants at all three shows, it seems that he wore two different tops during the 3 nights in NY...the brocaded top and the spangly jacket with the silver lapels.

This suggests that Jimmy, knowing that they were going to film the NY shows, wanted something a little more visually spectacular to wear, and whether it was his lady friend Coco in LA or some other person handy with needle and thread, the outfit apparently wasn't ready until New York.

Strider, there are some of us here on the board who were at many of the '73 shows so while we may be familiar with the different outfits Jimmy wore (on and off stage) I think younger fans or fans who are new to the band speak only of the "73 cosmic" pants because those seem to have become iconic in that, for a long time, most of the photos (and film footage) circulating of JP during the '73 tour showed him in those pants. I think the same may hold true for the '75 tour.

On the '73 tour, Robert and Jimmy had a couple of young women (college age) with them in NY and they worked on some of the LZ guys outfits (sewing appliques, etc.), including Jimmy's suit. They seemed more like "hippie girls" - they were separate from and slightly older than the groupies (and neither of them was Coco).

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  • 3 weeks later...

I totally understand what you are saying MSG, and I give a pass to the younger fans. My comments were directed at those who should know better...I can't tell you how many times I've picked up a Zeppelin book only to see photo after photo mis-dated. And when one book has an error, the error reverberates because the next book picks it up and passes it along as fact.

So now we have a whole bunch of Zeppelin books out there with screwed up facts...there are even people out there who claim to have seen Zeppelin in concert in 1974 and/or 1976.

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  • 3 months later...

It's been a while since I was last on this forum. Frankly I had been thinking of deleting this account and making a new one (I have a new email address - same IP address though), but we'll see...

Thank you, that was quite informative and well-written.

Do you have proof of this, or some sort of source? I really don't mean to be a dick, but that's a little meager.

That's plausible enough, I guess, but do you have proof of this?

..Gram Parsons of Flying Burrito Brothesr in his similar white/poppy suit of Page - Designer Manuel Cuevas, protégé of Nudie, The famous Tailor Jimmy Page/Miss Pamela visited in 1969.

Photos of Gram Parsons in his white poppy embroidery Designer suit:

http://www.60x50.com/2009/01/nudie-suit.html

Video of Gram Parsons wearing the Manuel Cuevas Suit:

http://www.thekerrminator.com/gram-parsons-jacket.html

I cannot find any further connection between Designer Manuel Cuevas and Jimmy Page

Edited by PlanetPage
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  • 7 months later...

Hey guys, does anybody know which dragon suit was on display at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame & Museum in 2001? I remember it as being black, while my husband remembers it as being white. I've tried searching for an answer online and came up with nothing!

Thanks!

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Here is a link to the suit Page never wore and is at Victoria & Albert

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O163738/theatre-costume/

And here is another link to another LZ board where they have a wardrobe thread

One of the people commenting on there was a guy that worked for Show Co

http://www.royal-orleans.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=17273#p280532

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Oh, *that* suit is a beauty! The back features "The Eye In The Pyramid" design that Aleister Crowley originally used in his Equinox book series back around 1912, above the arched body of Nuit, the Queen of Heaven, and the Winged Globe, Hadit(h), from the Funeral Stele of Ankh-Af-Na-Khonsu, "The Priest Of The Princes" (which figures heavily in Crowley's "Liber L/Liber Al Vel Legis/Liber AL", The Book of the Law). Below that, on the lower back, is the Hebrew letter/glyph Heh, the significance of which a book chapter might be written. Amazingly Thelemic for its time! A real beauty.

Edited by walter's walker
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  • 7 years later...
On 1/8/2012 at 1:26 PM, rowantree said:

Hey guys, does anybody know which dragon suit was on display at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame & Museum in 2001? I remember it as being black, while my husband remembers it as being white. I've tried searching for an answer online and came up with nothing!

 

Thanks!

It was the black one.

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I was interested to hear that the suit's designer Coco, said the dragon design was supposedly the Chinese astrological sign of the year the suit was made.  I looked up the Chinese astrological sign for Master Page's birthday date and was hoping it was a dragon, but to my surprise it was a goat, huh, don't blame him for using the dragon instead.  

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  • 4 weeks later...

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