A new documentary out this month, George Michael Freedom Uncut, tells the story of Michael’s rise to fame and includes what he wore along the way. Featuring talking heads including Sir Elton John and Mses Mary J Blige and Naomi Campbell – and an intro from Michael’s neighbour, Ms Kate Moss – it is an update of the 2017 Channel 4 film and the last project for Michael before he died. It’s sure to make fans fall for Michael all over again, six years after his death at 53. The film explains how the star was a student of pop, escaping into music at a young age when he was bullied.

Born Mr Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou in 1963, the son of a restaurant owner and a dancer, he grew up in north London and met Ridgeley at school in Hertfordshire. By 1981, they had formed Wham!, with Michael penning what he once referred to as “fuck-off pop songs people can’t resist”. He was right – singles such as “Club Tropicana” and “Bad Boys” were instant earworms and dominated 1983. Speaking to a reporter in 1986, he explained his passion: “You either see pop music as a contemporary art form or you don’t. I do, very strongly. It’s the only day-to-day, moving art form.”

With this background in all things pop, Michael was well aware of image as a factor in success – beautifully dressed Motown artists including The Isley Brothers and Mr Stevie Wonder were early influences. In a very Motown-approved way, Wham! wore matching outfits – like short short co-ords – and these outfits were often coordinated with those of backing singers Pepsi and Shirlie. And long before acts talked of platforms, Michael and Ridgeley used their growing clout to put a message out there. In 1984, the duo wore Ms Katherine Hamnett’s “Choose Life” T-shirts in the video for their song, “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go”, promoting an anti-drug and anti-suicide campaign.

This image evolution continued as he transitioned to a solo career. For “Faith”, he wore Levi’s jeans, a black biker jacket, aviators and even – in the video for the single – a Wurlitzer jukebox. The look was, as author Mr Simon Reynolds has written, a way for Michael to take an American troupe and sell it back to them because, by the mid-1980s, “the sound and look of rock ’n’ roll had ascended to the level of perennial cool.” Michael was shrewd to notice this, and it worked: “Faith” reached number one in multiple countries, including the US and Australia.

Speaking in the last interview before his death, the star revealed this look was his idea, with no stylist involved: “no one ever told me to buy this, buy that, look this way, look that way – I chose all of that myself. And to me, the vital thing was the sunglasses; because with the sunglasses, then I could hide.” A positive side effect of this is that Michael’s shade game is undeniably impressive.

Michael’s desire to retreat from the limelight increased as he got older – in the documentary, he explains how he used image to “create a new character” that would compete with other 1980s megastars Mr Michael Jackson, Madonna and Prince and allow him to stay private at the same time. “I’m aware of the need for a persona – and my actual persona, I’m not really prepared to give,” he says at one point. Post-“Faith”, this became untenable. Michael doesn’t appear in the video for “Freedom 90” – instead recruiting a cast of supermodels in Thierry Mugler, and focusing on that famous leather jacket, set on fire. From this point on, when he did appear in videos – as with Ms Mary J Blige in 1999’s “As” – the suits dominated.

Michael would perhaps be pleased to learn that it is his tailoring prowess that is becoming cemented as his fashion signature after his death. In 2022, he is – quite rightly – seen as a giant of pop. But his style legacy has perhaps been somewhat slept-on. With the shirtless suit back in fashion, and a new documentary in the cinema, that may finally be about to change.