The Return of Mascot Leathers

[Edward]

This just in...

Not long arrived for a fortnight's work in Beijing, out in the sticks, with a lot to do and not much time to sightsee, I end up amusing myself by trawling some corners of the web that I know but which I might not often visit, what with all the heady distraction of the likes of Facebook and other such sites that are on China's blacklist... Poking around the Ace Cafe site last night (actually looking for information about events that might be interesting for a TFL gathering of denim and leather minded souls), I had a flip through their online shop to drool at the Lewis jackets. Lewis have a long-running association with the Ace. They dropped out for a couple of years while Lewis were out of business (that was the era of the Lauder-era Aero Ace Cafe Collection of three jackets with an Ace Cafe theme to them), then picked up again when Derek got them back on the road. For those with a more American bent to their styling, the Ace have also long sold the Schott Perfecto - both the 618, and a branded version thereof with Ace pin badges and patches applied. In the last several months (perhaps very recently? I think I last looked at the site about three weeks ago?), though, something new has been added: three models from Mascot.

Mascot was one of the plethora of British motorcycle leather names that were contemporaries of Highwayman and Lewis. They have a new website here:

http://www.mascotleathers.com/

The company, which closed originally in the nineties, was based in a factory in Clacton formerly. They got into producing leather motorcycle jackets in the 50s, when the motorcycle was a popular form of working man's transport rather than more of a lifestyle statement or a hobby thing as it tends to be today. They produced some really interesting jackets over time, and when the motorcycle started to cede to the car as popular transport, they rode the 1970s **** rock boom above many a pair of drainpipe jeans or bondage trousers. The bigger bands like the Pistols and the Clash wore Lewis, but many fans and newer bands who hadn't quite made it yet (including an early Undertones) wore Mascot jackets, which were cheaper.

The Mascot website suggests jackets are made to order, with no photos of individual models being on offer just yet. They don't quote any prices for these either, though they do maje noises about affordability. I suspect this must be a very recent development. I'm not clear who owns the company. It originally shut down in the nineties, after having for some years diversified away fromleather and into wax cotton jackets. The website reads like it's been bought over by a bunch of people who are real fans of the originals, so it's going to be interesting to see how it grows.

The Ace Cafe has three models available on its website. There's the Black Cafe:

The Black Rock is gorgeous, very much in the style of the Lewis front-zip, shirt-collar models, or the Highwayman model Aero now reproduces as the Original 59'er Highwayman. This is one that would certainly have sold well to impressionable young ****s keen to imitate Sid Vicious' Lewis Dominator:


Sid:

Mascot Black Rock:

Vicious' Lewis Dominator was one of the most famous leather jackets in **** rock - the Perfecto with which many now associate him wasn't purchased until the time of the Pistols' ill-fated US tour that saw the band implode. Most of the British **** bands wore very distinctly British jackets (Joe Strummer's Lewis Lightning was one of the more famous). Hells, Sid was imitating his hero DeeDee Ramone with the Perfecto, but it was only into 77, by the time of their third album, that the Perfecto started to be come a Ramones norm, and Joey still regularly wore his Lewis Bronx or Lewis Lightning even then....

The third one is the Black Night (no K):

I really like the back yoke on this one (don't know whether the others have this feature, there's no photo of that on them, though the hidtory blurb on the Mascot website refers to the Night and the Rock as "W styles", which would seem a reference to it):

I have a feeling the Black Night is the jacket that Feargal Sharkey wore about a lot circa 1979 (including on the cover of the first Undertones album).

I've got to information on who is behind these; they just caught my eye as something different and interesting, reproducing one of the perhaps less well known labels of the 'rocker' era. The Black Night and Black Rock ("It's like, how much more black could they be? The answer is none. None more black.") both debuted in 1957, one year after the Lewis Bronx, and one year before the Lewis Lightning. Interestingly, the Lewis straight zip / shirt collar models (at least the Dominator, Corsair and Plainsman - Im' not aware of there having been any others) date to the early 60s (1962 for the Corsair). So ti appears the cheaper "copy" that many youg ****s purchased under the satorial spell of Sid Vicious actually predates Sid's own jacket as a design....

I'm planning to take a trip up to the Ace again soon - it's been a few years sicne I last dropped in.... maybe eight or nine? Not sure how that happened.... eeps. Anyhoo, I'm going to have a good looksee over these jackets if they have any in stock. (I think they do keep some jackets on the premises.) The Balck Rock has a pull for me.... though the most distinctive of the bunch is definitely the Black Night. I've toyed for a long time with the idea of putting together a late 50s Rocker-style jacket, with some patches, maybe a pin or two... more in the spirit of most of the original jackets than some of the more extreme ones from the time (the Rocker equivalent of the Comedy Mod with a million and one mirrors and parka even in late May....). I've never wnted to commit patches to one of my Aeros, though, and a Lewis would similarly be a bit much to decorate like that..... I've considered looking for a 70s noname/alsoranLewisalike for that too, though they tend to be a bit 'Tonka', with massively over-sized zips and such.... These could be a realistic option for that, though. The Ace Cafe have them coming in at £299, and the implication on the website where the revived Mascot talks about maintaining what they refer to as the affordability of the original. Hmmnn....

For those to whom it might be important, I can't find anything on where they're made. I'm tempted to say that at that price I can't see it being UK based, though I think Wested do make some of their stuff in the UK so who knows.... No idea whether they've compromised on quality, though they definitely look the part, at least.

Anyone else seen these / looked at them in person / know any more?

Any other forgotten names and styles being revived now?

 

[Edward]

(For clarity, I used the work P U N K above, but it appears to have been censored??)

 

[Bunyip]

That's a great deal of fantastic information Edward. Much appreciated...I quite like that era, and am gradually learning more about the personalities and brands as I go. That was a great read, cheers.

 

[pawineguy]

Interesting brand, and it certainly hits a price point, which is what allows Ace to carry them alongside Lewis I would presume. It seems like that was their MO during their first incarnation also, if you can't afford Lewis, then take a look at Mascot. I also like that bat wing yoke, well done.

I've been scouring for the story on this revival and like you I can't find anything.

 

[Otter]

(For clarity, I used the work P U N K above, but it appears to have been censored??)

Are you feeling lucky asterisk !

Fairly incomprehensible word filter choice unless someone really hates 70's music.

 

[Capesofwrath]

Still mainly has the original meaning of catamite in the US I believe, and is still used that way. So it’s considered a profanity, and US based websites do filter those out very effectively.

 

[Otter]

You learn something every day ! I never knew that was what it derived from.

 

[pawineguy]

Still mainly has the original meaning of catamite in the US I believe, and is still used that way. So it’s considered a profanity, and US based websites do filter those out very effectively.

We definitely do not use that meaning in the U.S., but I can see how it might be placed on a list because of its alternate meaning.

 

[navetsea]

is it just my perception of the photo, or is the leather a bit thinner on these jackets?

 

[havocpaul]

I too discovered they were back when I browsed the Ace site, was initially quite excited but on closer inspection of the details I am not so sure, the hides look like typical high-street biker jacket type, the main zip is a large chunky YKK (I am not a fan of YKK zips on repro jackets!) and the inside pocket looks like it might be a plastic zip? I have owned several original 60/70's Mascot jackets and although not quite the build quality of Lewis jackets, they were still great jackets with Aero or Lightning zips and strong hides. I would think the new ones are made overseas and not here in the UK but hopefully I am wrong.

 

[Monitor]

I really like the Black Rock!

 

[rocketeer]

I bought a straight zip Mascot for my son when we were riding my A65 around 12 years back for £10 at a car boot sale. Now they fetch a bit more but originals are still fairly priced at around £100 for a really good one.
Dont know if he still has it, I hope so as I let him pin my favourite BSA badge to it.

 

[tropicalbob]

The way in which the P U N K movement started in the UK has always been interesting to me. In NY, I thought at the time (1974?) that the black leather jackets of the Ramones were inspired by Lou Reed, especially his Rock and Roll Animal album, plus the whole Velvet Underground image, but it wasn't until the Ramones went to London that the Perfect style became a sort of uniform.

 

[Plumbline]

I had two mascots back in the 80's .... Both bike jackets and both purchased in Glasgows famous "paddys market" which was a treasure trove for 2nd hand clothing if you were a rocker, **** or mod ( and much cheaper than flip etc.)

The jackets were made of sheepskin and some of the inner panels were plastic (as a feature rather than a cost cutting exercise) e.g. The inner tail panel at the back The linings were red nylon quilting ( which probably conflicts with Dereks offering) and the "black knight" style jacket was the biker uniform which I wore till it literally fell apart.

GREAT to see them back in production .... A 38" isn't going to look as cool today as it did, back then ...... I just might pick one up for old times sakes

 

[Edward]

That's a great deal of fantastic information Edward. Much appreciated...I quite like that era, and am gradually learning more about the personalities and brands as I go. That was a great read, cheers.

Thanks; I don't hold myself out as any Andrew Watland (or Jon Savge, for that matter ), but I've picked up a little bit over the years, especially about, eh pvnk rock. Like trousers, like brain, an aw that!

Interesting brand, and it certainly hits a price point, which is what allows Ace to carry them alongside Lewis I would presume. It seems like that was their MO during their first incarnation also, if you can't afford Lewis, then take a look at Mascot. I also like that bat wing yoke, well done.

I've been scouring for the story on this revival and like you I can't find anything.

It's come in very much under the radar. I did wonder if they might have anything on some of the classic motorcycling magazine pages or anything, but ther'es no mention of it online that I can find. I suspect maybe they're (quite sensibly) taking the Ace as a pilot project and ramping it up from there. They give an address in bath, so I don't know if they've been doing anything locallly there over time.... they don't have any shopfront other than the Ace, so it does all seem very new.

Are you feeling lucky asterisk !

Fairly incomprehensible word filter choice unless someone really hates 70's music.

Quite. It's deviated so far away from any original meaning, that it would seem unhealthily prudish to censor it just in case it causes offence to a tiny minority, though I'd add that I suspect it's probably one of those things that Proboards has as standard in bits environment rather than it being a deliberate Lounge policy. ***** seems to be a far dirtier word round here.... (And besides, half the vintage "community", at least here in the UK, are old pvnks and goths....).

is it just my perception of the photo, or is the leather a bit thinner on these jackets?

Could well be. Of course, that would be fairly accurate.... British jackets of that period were much lighter than we'd expect now, at least based on all the originals I've handled over the years. Lewis went through a particularly dodgy era in the 70s.... some of them I've handled you could spit through. I know they've picked up now, of course. Hide is one of the things I'd want to check out in person before I considered buying.

I too discovered they were back when I browsed the Ace site, was initially quite excited but on closer inspection of the details I am not so sure, the hides look like typical high-street biker jacket type, the main zip is a large chunky YKK (I am not a fan of YKK zips on repro jackets!) and the inside pocket looks like it might be a plastic zip? I have owned several original 60/70's Mascot jackets and although not quite the build quality of Lewis jackets, they were still great jackets with Aero or Lightning zips and strong hides. I would think the new ones are made overseas and not here in the UK but hopefully I am wrong.

YKK is pretty much a standard these days, yeah. I've never had one fail on me, so I wouldn't be worried from a quality aspect, but they don't have the distinctive coffin-shaped pulls of the originals, which is a pity. If they would add the right pulls to these it would look nice, but I suppose again that ups the price. I'm not sure that they're so much chunkier than the originals, though - see this one on Australian eBay:

Looks pretty chunky to me. Of course, these jackets were in production for a long time, so this could have been a later model.

TBH, I really don't much care where they're made (as long as employment practices are ethical), but it is often a marketing factor with this sort of thing, as a lot of folks do buy into the mystique of something being "made here" - I suppose it's all part of the heritage branding. That's a much stronger thing in the US, but then the US still has a manufacturing industry to speak of - outside of niche products, I don't think the UK has since the early eighties. They might be UK made, though... Wested produce a bunch of their stuff in the UK at relatively low prices, so. [huh]

I'm sure they won't be quite as good as the Lewis, though it'll be interesting to see if they're decent enough. I imagine there are a lot of folks woh will happily settle for a certain level of compromise, seeing the additional jupm to a Lewis as not worth a littel over double the price. It's a canny marketing move all round; Lewis are so much the king of the hill in the Ace / Rocker scene, and for so long have had it to themselves (I don't think, until the Aero 59er Highwayman, there was really anyone producing something in exactly the same niche as Lewis?), it would be very hard to take them on head to head. Producing a product that's in that general zone, with it's own distinct identity, and at a price that's within reach for those who want something that has that distinctly British rocker vibe (which the Perfecto style lacks), would seem to be a solid business plan. Be interesting to see where they go with it.

I really like the Black Rock!

Yes, it would be a great basis for a rocker jacket without attacking a £700 Lewis with patches and pins! The Black Night is the most unique of them... it's nice to see something distinctive like this broadening the market.

The way in which the P U N K movement started in the UK has always been interesting to me. In NY, I thought at the time (1974?) that the black leather jackets of the Ramones were inspired by Lou Reed, especially his Rock and Roll Animal album, plus the whole Velvet Underground image, but it wasn't until the Ramones went to London that the Perfect style became a sort of uniform.

I expect Lou had an influence - he was definitely a musical influence on the more art school end of the New York scene. The Ramones were all wearing the basic uniform of sneakers, ripped up blue jeans, and a black leather jacket, but if you look at the first album cover, they're all wearing something different. From memory, der Fuhrer, Johnny, was the only one wearing aSchott Perfecto, the others being in whatever they could lay their hands on. When they replicated that 'band lined up against a brick wall' shot for the cover of their third album (and second of 1977), meisterwerk Rocket to Russia, there are three of them in Perfectos. By the early 80s, the Perfecto was the defacto uniform - it fitted well with their NYC heritage and image as "all-American" (albeit in an offbeam fashion) to wear the very American Schott Perfecto. Joey bought his Lewis in London, the first in 1977. I believe the Brinx was the first, later followed by a Lewis Lightning (the 402 model, if memory serves - similar to the original 1958 jacket, but with the sided straps pointing round the back for a more utilitarian look from the front). Joey wore his Lewises on and off for years, though the Schotts became more and more the 'on-duty' Ramones uniform.

As to where pvnk started, well.... that's a whole nother debate. A lot of the English I know get very snotty when you suggest it was an American thing, what with the CBGBs scene being in full swing around 1974, when the Ramones played their first gigs there, with Blondie, Television and such playing out. Even John Lydon - a strong proponent of the London-invented-pvnk theory, usually - acknowledged a Stooges influence, and they were on the go in 68.... Whatever, it's hard to pinpoint it. I mean, myself, I'd argue Mozart was the first pvnk... Where do you stop? I think the Ramones were pretty spot on. Their gig was about taking rock and roll back to its roots, stripping away the prog rock pretension and ornateness that was strangling rock and roll, and making it fun again. Their offbeat choice of subject matter about which to sing was unselfconscious - said Johnny Ramone, years later - "We couldn't sing songs about cars and girlfriends because we didn't have girlfriends and we didn't have cars." When you listen to Ramones numbers covered by various rockabilly and psychobilly acts in an earlier style, the link from, say, Johnny Burnett to Johnny Ramone starts to become very clear.... Mind you, I've also noted the same for the Clash's earleir material, which is especially interesting as they did start out affecting to follow the same Year Zero philosophy that was common across the London pvnk bands of 76/77, hence Strummer's boilersuit that bore the stenciled legend "Chuck Berry is dead." All done and told, I think it's much too complex a thing to simplify to say it started.... there. Bit like insisting only americans can truly get real rock and roll, then discovering that the greatest American rock and roll record ever made - Vince Taylor and his Playboys' Brand New Cadillac - was actually recorded in England, by a bunch of guys from Middlesex....

 

[Edward]

Ah.... so H i p p y is also on the filter list now?

 

[wdw]

This thread takes me back. I saw the Ramones at the Glasgow Apollo in 1977, supported by the Rezillos.

It was a fun, and loud, gig, but I never thought of them as **** as they always seemed so squeaky clean compared to what was happening in the UK at that time.

Hey, the word pvnk was asterisked automatically. Are we in China now?

 

[Big J]

Ah.... so H i p p y is also on the filter list now?

Yeah, but you can select this;
:******:

 

[Big J]

Yeah, but you can select this;
:******:

Oh, that's been disabled too. Why?

 

[Edward]

Hey, the word pvnk was asterisked automatically. Are we in China now?

Per the OP, I am....

The 'h1ppy' thing I remember now I noticed a while back... assumed it was either an in-joke or an attempt to get James Powers to give over...

I wish I'd gotten to see the Ramones live. Nearest I got was seeing Marky sit in on the drumstool for a set of Ramones numbers following one of his spoken word gigs about twelve years ago. They were a different vibe than a lot of the UK scene - rarely political. Probably a lot to do with the wildly varying political views within the band (Johnny reportedly pitched a huge fit over Bonzo goes to Bitburg, a song written by Joey, which criticised Regan's visit to a German military cemetary that included a whole section of Waffen SS graves.) Most of the big UK pvnk bands were ardently political in one way or another, whether the Pistols' joyous contempt for the establishment, or the Clash's call to arms. I saw Joe Strummer with the Mescaleroes, all three public London gigs (I'd have been at the FBU benefit had I but known about it in advance, too). Joe Strummer remains the only man I'd ever follow into battle.