What is your favorite movie leather jacket?

[barnabus]

I have been toying with the idea of a Lewis Leathers "Super Sportsman" in red with white stripes. Or even white with red stripes...

Samuel Barnett wears a series of colourful custom Super Sportsman jackets in the Dirk Gently TV show.

I always loved the yellow one. I still hanker after one now.

 

[Edward]

Samuel Barnett wears a series of colourful custom Super Sportsman jackets in the Form Gently TV show.

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I always loved the yellow one. I still hanker after one now.

Lewis really went all out with their coloured leathers from the 1978 range onwards. 'Blaze Orange' was a particular flagship option in the promotional stuff. They were marketed as a safety feature, primarily, though I always had the impression that buyers were predominantly split into two camps: those who were stylistically influenced by the coloured racing leathers of the period (this the era when racing-style bikes started to become popular on the roads), and those who by this point in time had themselves or perceived in non-riding others with whom they interacted negative associations with black leather specifically. Even at the turn of the 90s when I got my first black leather mc jacket, there were many of my parents generation who viewed anyone clad in such to be inherently suspicious, a potential hoodlum ("jazzed up" or otherwise). In some (pro-union) areas of the part of Ireland I grew up in, there was a widespread belief that "the IRA wear black leather jackets." Never any evidence for this supplied (though likely it was based on photos of apprehended individuals appearing on the news particularly throughout the 70s when certain styles of black leather jacket were highly fashionable and therefore commonly worn), but it was certainly enough for some kids I knew to end up in heated rows at home when they wanted a black leather jacket like Alice Cooper or whomever at the time.

Longer term, while they're still around, you don't see many of these being worn on bikes at all - I suppose much of the market for them moved on to newer textile gear. Important part of motorcycle leather history, though, in that c.78 to c.88 decade. Lewis lead the way, but there were copied by many others. I remember a turquois blue colour, a shade or two darker than the one in the photo above, being the leather colour you'd most likely see if it wasn't black. Invariably in jacket that were either similar to a Lightning, or, even more often, something akin to a SuperMonza. The lancer front with mandarin collar look was, I would say, the quintessential British leather bike jacket from around the turn of the eighties until well into the 90s.

 

[Edward]

I liked that one too - preferred it, actually, back at the time.

But that kind of overblown 90s motorcycle vibe isn't my thing any more.

Similar to Emil's jacket in RoboCop. I loved that, then, and I've owned several of that design over the years. But now I err towards something much less of a statement.

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I remember jackets like that being *everywhere* by 1990. If you saw anyone on a bike in Belfast wearing a leather bought much after about 1988 until maybe the mid 2000s it was likely one of these.

I have to confess.... In my youth, I always wanted a "biker" jacket. First because of Alice Cooper, later my stylistic vibe was very "fifth Ramone". For Christmas in 1990, when I'd have been 16, my parents bought me a leather jacket. It was the sort of thing that mail order catalogues and police suspect-descriptions referred to as a blouson. Fair quality black leather and a brushed cotton inner, but the sort of design that screamed "1980s down-with-the-kids-youth-worker". I was too polite to reject it outright, but I think they realised when they had to persuade me to put it on to Church on Christmas morning and I couldn't get it off fast enough once inside (I had not removed the tags either) it was not a goer... It went back and a week later I got my first Perfecto-style jacket. Loved that, practically lived in it for the next three years. I wish I had a photo of the label, but it was a black leather label with white painted print, and definitely carried the phrases "NYC" and "naked cowhide".

When I grew out of that, I remember coming home on my 21st birthday and my parents had bought me a jacket that looked exactly like the one in the photo you posted. I think I *might* have tried it on for all of two minutes. The shoulders made me twice the size I was then. I hated it on sight. Bless them, they took it well when I acknowledged it was a real motorcycle jacket, but very much not what I meant by a "biker jacket". Ironically, I was later told that my brother had seen it when they excitedly brought it home an hour or two before I arrived, and simply remarked "He'll never wear that." It's funny how somethings change, others don't. There are things I love now that I hated back then (jeans that aren't drainpipes, trousers with a wide leg, brown clothes, Irvins, leather jackets that aren't Perfecto styled and are not even black(!), bow ties...), but one constant is I still couldn't seriously thing of wearing one of those.

Ironically, though, money no object I'd totally have a full repro of the Karl Urban Judge Dredd uniform, which isn't that far off one of these....). Context is king, though - our vibes change and single pieces that we might admire in isolation don't always work with the overall look we have now...

 

[barnabus]

Lewis really went all out with their coloured leathers from the 1978 range onwards. 'Blaze Orange' was a particular flagship option in the promotional stuff. They were marketed as a safety feature, primarily, though I always had the impression that buyers were predominantly split into two camps: those who were stylistically influenced by the coloured racing leathers of the period (this the era when racing-style bikes started to become popular on the roads), and those who by this point in time had themselves or perceived in non-riding others with whom they interacted negative associations with black leather specifically. Even at the turn of the 90s when I got my first black leather mc jacket, there were many of my parents generation who viewed anyone clad in such to be inherently suspicious, a potential hoodlum ("jazzed up" or otherwise). In some (pro-union) areas of the part of Ireland I grew up in, there was a widespread belief that "the IRA wear black leather jackets." Never any evidence for this supplied (though likely it was based on photos of apprehended individuals appearing on the news particularly throughout the 70s when certain styles of black leather jacket were highly fashionable and therefore commonly worn), but it was certainly enough for some kids I knew to end up in heated rows at home when they wanted a black leather jacket like Alice Cooper or whomever at the time.

Longer term, while they're still around, you don't see many of these being worn on bikes at all - I suppose much of the market for them moved on to newer textile gear. Important part of motorcycle leather history, though, in that c.78 to c.88 decade. Lewis lead the way, but there were copied by many others. I remember a turquois blue colour, a shade or two darker than the one in the photo above, being the leather colour you'd most likely see if it wasn't black. Invariably in jacket that were either similar to a Lightning, or, even more often, something akin to a SuperMonza. The lancer front with mandarin collar look was, I would say, the quintessential British leather bike jacket from around the turn of the eighties until well into the 90s.

Reminds me that I've still got this old 80s riding suit kicking about somewhere.

Navy blue with a sort of sky blue quilting.

https://www.thefedoralounge.com/threads/peter-dobbs-leathers.110551/

 

[Edward]

I absolutely loathe gratuitous Hollywood product placement shots.

They can be interesting from a sociological viewpoint. Bond being so heavily into product placement for.... well, basically forever is great example of the kind of products for which their makers / marketers see Bond fans as the target market. I often get a good laugh out of when sponsorship and PP is horrendously inappropriate - Subway as a tie in for the Hunger Games franchise was a good one. Another was when I used to watch the Big Bang Theory on Channel 4, sponsored by Clairol hair care products when I've been balding since about 2003 and totally shaven-headed since 2006. I suspect that either they greatly misread their target market, or I was very atypical as a viewer... made me laugh, though.

Ut can also be amusing when the product placement is in-yer-face clumsy and also dates a picture very quickly. I remember when The Matrix came out... the Duracell Battery made me laugh out loud in the cinema, but it's still recognisable, as are the Ray Bans. The centrality as a prop of that Nokia mobile phone which looked insanely dated by about the time the second film in the franchise came out, though, remains the real toe-curler.

 

[Pandemic]

They can be interesting from a sociological viewpoint. Bond being so heavily into product placement for.... well, basically forever is great example of the kind of products for which their makers / marketers see Bond fans as the target market. I often get a good laugh out of when sponsorship and PP is horrendously inappropriate - Subway as a tie in for the Hunger Games franchise was a good one. Another was when I used to watch the Big Bang Theory on Channel 4, sponsored by Clairol hair care products when I've been balding since about 2003 and totally shaven-headed since 2006. I suspect that either they greatly misread their target market, or I was very atypical as a viewer... made me laugh, though.

Ut can also be amusing when the product placement is in-yer-face clumsy and also dates a picture very quickly. I remember when The Matrix came out... the Duracell Battery made me laugh out loud in the cinema, but it's still recognisable, as are the Ray Bans. The centrality as a prop of that Nokia mobile phone which looked insanely dated by about the time the second film in the franchise came out, though, remains the real toe-curler.

The funniest thing for me is that fans have gotten so sucked into the product placements that they copy the style. There’s a whole community of guys into Bond clothing (which is cool) … who push the sleeves of their suits up to make sure the Omega is visible. It looks especially ridiculous knowing they aren’t even getting paid to look silly.

 

[Edward]

The funniest thing for me is that fans have gotten so sucked into the product placements that they copy the style. There’s a whole community of guys into Bond clothing (which is cool) … who push the sleeves of their suits up to make sure the Omega is visible. It looks especially ridiculous knowing they aren’t even getting paid to look silly.

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I've seen this, yeah. I suppose it's like any other cosplay when it gets deep into the details, though to be fair tis is a lot more wearable day to day than an Enterprise uniform or Dr FranknFurter drag... The Bond guys I've seen are all either Conner or Craig with their looks, though. Not seen anyone doing the flared leisure suit Moore era..... yet....

 

[Monitor]

The funniest thing for me is that fans have gotten so sucked into the product placements that they copy the style. There’s a whole community of guys into Bond clothing (which is cool) … who push the sleeves of their suits up to make sure the Omega is visible. It looks especially ridiculous knowing they aren’t even getting paid to look silly.

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And it's always this specific type of men.

 

[barnabus]

Emil's jacket in RoboCop. I loved that, then, and I've owned several of that design over the years.

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Argh!

Now my watchlist is full of the ****** things!

If I buy another one then someone on this forum is in trouble I think.

 

[Tom71]

Samuel Barnett wears a series of colourful custom Super Sportsman jackets in the Dirk Gently TV show.

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I always loved the yellow one. I still hanker after one now.

Oh yeah! I should add that a turquoise SSMan with yellow stripes were on my list as well...

 

[Tom71]

The funniest thing for me is that fans have gotten so sucked into the product placements that they copy the style. There’s a whole community of guys into Bond clothing (which is cool) … who push the sleeves of their suits up to make sure the Omega is visible. It looks especially ridiculous knowing they aren’t even getting paid to look silly.

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It is somewhat tragic that even Daniel Craig doesn‘t look as cool as Bond when he wear some of the garb IRL. It’s well known that he sized down one in “hero shots”, i.e. Shots where he is stationary or moving slowly. He would rip the fabric apart, should he try some of his action scenes in them.

A reminder that a lot of jackets that look stunning in photos may well be too small.

 

[Zombie_61]

The censorbot that came in with the last update to the underlying forum architecture has a very wide range of words it blurs out. As ever with extremely censorious types, the more I see of the list the more I realise that whomever programmed it has an absolute cesspool of a mind. Management are trying to do what they can in the background and hopefully it'll back off at some point. There are some of the terms it bars I can see the thinking behind, but as ever these technologies' inability to determine context is a right pain.

With some of the changes made by the last big software update, the thought process seemed to be "Err on the side of caution" with regards to language that was censored. Just an observation, but on occasion the new software did seem to do just that to the point that it was occasionally difficult to determine what had been removed and why. That said, I sincerely appreciate the civility present here on The Lounge, and I thank everyone who has a hand in maintaining that.

 

[TLW '90]

I always thought that this jacket that Guy Williams wore as Will Cartwright on Bonanza was pretty cool.
I love the color and overall cut, but couldn't pull it off with those tassels ( is that right? ) and I don't think it's meant to be closed up.
It's just for looks, but looks quite cool.

Other actors have worn very similar jackets on Bonanza before if not this very jacket.

 

[barnabus]

Argh!

Now my watchlist is full of the ****** things!

If I buy another one then someone on this forum is in trouble I think.

And now I've bought one!

Oh for goodness sake.

 

[Doctor Death]

I just watched The Loveless the other day for the first time. Really liked it! William Dafoe was the only professional actor in the movie. All others in the movie were amateurs, according to one review on the internet. This movie is somewhat similar to The Wild Ones, but more serious in tone. With a crazy ending. Bikers are wearing what look like Schott Perfectos. It's a moto leather fashion show!

 

[Edward]

I'm surprised no one's mentioned it yet given all the attention it's previously gotten on here, but Steve Rogers' (modified Aero?) battlefield jacket in the first Captain America movie was pretty cool for the 10-15 seconds it appeared.

Yes, that was an Aero Bootlegger, with a slightly different pocket layout than the standard model.

Handwarmer pockets were deleted and a flapped, patch pocket added on the right front panel. IIRC, the sleeves also had a strap added at the wrist. Looks like they also deleted a button hole from the left lapel. Can't quite tell from the photo, but I suspect they've deleted the epaulettes as well. (As standard, the Bootlegger has A2-style epaulettes). The Bootlegger is one of Aero's finest and most flexible designs, imo. This one was supplied as new to the Captain America wardrobe department, who then beat it to absolute hell for story reasons. Utterly unwearable now. (Unlike Cap's 40s knit-style sweater that was the top half of how they dressed him for the war bonds propaganda sequence in-story. That I rather liked and would wear.)

There are eleventy million no-name cosplay outfits all over the web selling knock-off versions of this jacket, none of them licenced, many of them with only ripped-off screen grabs in the ads- and Wested also do a version of their own (which looks a bit better than some, but still jut.... not right), but I've never seen an actual Aero version in the wild. Ken was asked in an interview some years ago whether he'd make one if a customer asked. He did say he'd consider it, iirc, but seemed sceptical as to whether there'd bed demand for it. Of course Aero have never chased the celebrity endorsement market (despite being worn, as we know, by Daniel Craig, Johnny Depp, Dave Vanian, and many more), which is one of the many things I've always liked about the company's ethos.

As to Cap, on the whole this is the best version of his look I've ever seen. I wish Marvel Studios would do more of a series on his War rather than the always-truncated into a half-film origin story version we inevitably get.

Yeah, very cool jacket. I'd get one if I was ex-USAF pilot but I'm not. Have to content myself with seeing Tom Cruise wearing it. Living vicariously!

Ex USAF wear a USN pilot's jacket? Surely professional rivalry would preclude that sort of thing! ;-)


Much as I intend eventually to put together a patched AVG jacket, I can *already* feel myself bridle at the first twit to mention Tom Cruise. I hated Top ***. But hey ho, subjective tastes an aw tha.

 

[Edward]

One for the ladies: Hayley Atwell's ****y Carter leather.

 

[thor]

My favorite movie jacket is the G-1 jacket worn by William Holden in “The Bridges of Toko-Ri” (it’s even cooler than Tom Cruise’s G-1 from TG). The patches are from Navy squadron VF-193, the Golden Dragons, a fighter-bomber unit that flew F9F Panther jets from aircraft carriers during the Korean War. Great movie!

 

[Edward]

Some time around the back end of the eighties, following the success of Hair Spray, John Waters decided to make what he regarded as his Elvis picture. The result was Cry Baby, a picture which hits all the Elvis notes with subversive tongue firmly in cheek. It's a hillbilly Grease, with a vastly superior sense of period, and a better soundtrack. (No shoe-horned in disco!) Perfect blend of love of and mockery for nostalgia. Released back in 1990, I discovered it about five years later on TV. Iggy Pop was the 'in' that sold it to me. Couple of nice jackets in it. Wade "Cry Baby" Walker's jacket is one that always stuck out to me:

Glossy black, with shiny brass fittings - a new sight to me, having grown up with all black and chrome. Can't find a decent photo of it online, but the details are interesting: it seems this jacket doesn't have either chest pocket or the tabbed money/ticket/coin pocket associated with the Perfecto style -just handwarmers. Has a really clean look that I like.

Wanda Woodward's jacket, OTOH, is a lot less special, but the life Traci Lords (in her first mainstream acting role) breathed into her made Wanda the stand-out character, a real screen icon.

"Beat it, creep!"

 

[Zombie_61]

Yes, that was an Aero Bootlegger, with a slightly different pocket layout than the standard model...As to Cap, on the whole this is the best version of his look I've ever seen.

I agree with you about this being Cap's "best look". I saw this in the trailers before the movie had opened, and I thought "Okay, now I have to get a jacket like that." Except, y'know, new and not all beat up. Then I got a better look at it in the movie and thought, "What happened?!? They ruined a perfectly good jacket for no reason!" And the search began. And continued. And continued. Everybody who was selling them had falsely increased the price just to sell a cheaper quality jacket for more money. Ultimately I never did get one, but if I were to find one today that I liked I'd be doing some serious inspecting and savings calculations.