The Enduring Appeal Of The Leather Jacket
I’ve worn my Dad’s old leather jacket for as long as I've been able to fit into it. Softened and faded in colour at the elbows, cuffs and collar, threadbare on the inside and imbued with the memories of late nights and even earlier mornings. It’s my most trusted layer that, if in doubt, I’ll throw on as I head out of the door to any occasion. My old leather jacket is as fitting over a sweatshirt while nipping out to the shops, with tailoring while en route to the office, or atop a slinky party dress when out in town on a Friday night.
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Indeed few garments elicit the same sense of rugged sophistication as the leather jacket. And given the recent frenzy of celebrity-approved leather looks at global fashion weeks, it feels like a fitting time to unzip, unbuckle and unbutton the leather jacket’s lasting appeal.
Taking a brief look at its history is a good place to start. Originally favoured by pilots in the early 20th century, in the form of heavy-duty bomber jackets for facing the elements, the utilitarian piece soon shed its practical associations and became a Hollywood hit. Marlon Brando’s Schott Perfecto in The Wild One, James Dean's favourite biker jacket, and Danny Zuko and his band of T-Birds in Grease popularised the piece, wearing theirs with skin-tight T-shirts and carefully coiffed hair. The leather jacket, became a symbol of freedom, sex appeal and non-conformity, quickly finding a place in the wardrobes of rock musicians and countercultural figures.
Picked up by the burgeoning punk movement in the late 1960s and 1970s, the leather jacket was paired with ripped jeans, safety pins, and Dr. Martens, to further fuel the anti-establishment attitude it provoked. But it wasn't until the 1980s, that glam rock icons like Joan Jett and Debbie Harry, made the leather jacket synonymous with rebellious femininity. Their black leather jackets, punched with buttons, studs, and pins, became a part of their public persona, blending a certain toughness with peerless class.
In the 1990s supermodels like Kate Moss and actors like Winona Ryder made the leather jacket a go-to piece for off-duty cool, elevating it beyond its rock ‘n’ roll roots and establishing it as a fashion staple—throwing theirs over band T-shirts and well-worn denim by day and minidresses and kitten heels by night.
Today, the leather jacket’s unmatched versatility is the key reason for its lasting appeal. Striking a balance between ruggedness and refinement, cropped, distressed, polished or oversized, the perfect leather jacket adds an air of easy elegance to any outfit. Better still, those of us lucky enough to own a well-worn piece—whether inherited, thrifted, or broken in over years—will know that they only get better with age. The antithesis of fleeting trends, the leather jacket is the ultimate style constant, ageing to perfection (like a fine wine) and transcending fashions.
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