He moved to the US to work on New York's Seventh Avenue in 1974, returning to Britain some two decades later, where he continued supplying UK fashion retailers.
[4][5] McCann trained at the Royal College of Art under Madge Garland during the early 1950s, also getting involved in designing dresses for debutantes in the run up to the coronation of the Queen.
[2] In a 2006 interview with the V&A, he recalled that this was a very smart job, involving trips to the Paris fashion shows to view haute-couture work by Balmain and Dior.
Others featured in the article included Mary Quant, Jean Muir, David Sassoon, Kiki Byrne, Marion Foale and Sally Tuffin.
[7] He opened a boutique on Upper Grosvenor Street, Mayfair (downstairs from Raphael and Leonard's House of Beauty), and his black crepe and organza dress was featured in The Observer just before Christmas, with author Janey Ironside noting that the design had: "the added advantage that you do not look as if you had gone to the party in your slip and it is just as suitable for dancing the Birdie or the Hitchhike as for standing jammed clutching a glass".
A 1964 feature in The Observer entitled 'The Importance of Being British', singled him out, alongside Burberry and Aquascutum, as a name with cachet for foreign buyers, quoting the fashion director of Helen Whiting in New York who had said: "Everything Gerald had looked new for our market".
[3] McCann took his clothes designs on "whistlestop tours" of America and attracted enough attention to be invited to appear on breakfast TV shows.
[3] McCann returned to the UK at the start of the 1990s and began designing clothes for department stores such as Fenwick, Harrods and House of Fraser.