What was that first jacket that started it all?

[Evian]

Everyone has that first one that started a huge collection. What was yours? Mine was a vintage motorcycle jacket that I picked up at the Thrift Store for $20. It was a weather jacket but it looked awesome. I got numerous compliments on it. It had removable sleeves. It must have been 50-60 years old.

 

[ButteMT61]

WWII jackets collected with my son. I think the first was a tanker jacket, US.
Hard to remember exactly, but good question.

 

[JLStorm]

I was born this way...

 

[442RCT]

My very first flight jacket was a G-1 I wore for 10 years. The jacket that started my flight jacket collection was a really bad copy of an A-2, at the time I didn't have a clue how bad it was, [huh] I bought it at a 'yuppie' surplus store, (now that's an oxymoron in itself), that was going out of business. This store didn't sell real military surplus, just things that looked like military type clothing to people who wanted to be trendy and fashionable...that's a yuppie surplus store. The jacket was on sale for 1/2 price, at $ 60, and I've always been interested in WW2 aviation and especially fascinated with 'nose art'. After this jacket, I kept buying more and more.

Notice the trendy cowboy metal collar tips, the pre-distressed leather, the split down the center of the back.

 

[Widebrim]

My father's WWII Class A jacket.

 

[Atticus Finch]

Had an M-51 in high school. It had a big 'ol "Student Target" button on it...and a "McGovern for President" button...and probably some other buttons that I can't really recall right now. My parents hated that jacket, but I loved it and I wore it to shreds. A few years later, a girlfriend's dad gave me his still-in-the-bag, 1972 Alpha MA-1. I was a sophomore in undergrad and I wore it for years until I outgrew it. I still have a soft spot for M-51s and MA-1s. I guess I've got more of those in my collection that any other jacket.

AF

 

[Peacoat]

My very first flight jacket was a G-1 I wore for 10 years. The jacket that started my flight jacket collection was a really bad copy of an A-2, at the time I didn't have a clue how bad it was, [huh] I bought it at a 'yuppie' surplus store, (now that's an oxymoron in itself), that was going out of business. This store didn't sell real military surplus, just things that looked like military type clothing to people who wanted to be trendy and fashionable...that's a yuppie surplus store. The jacket was on sale for 1/2 price, at $ 60, and I've always been interested in WW2 aviation and especially fascinated with 'nose art'. After this jacket, I kept buying more and more.

Notice the trendy cowboy metal collar tips, the pre-distressed leather, the split down the center of the back.

Everyone must start somewhere.

 

[Ace Rimmer]

Well I was in high school and was with a buddy when his dad bought him his first leather jacket. It was a mall brand replica of the Schott Perfecto.

(Strange memory time: I remember his dad specifying to the store clerk that he didn't want his son to wear one with the American flag on the back because we were having problems with skinheads at our school. Given the area of the Commonwealth, in retrospect I guess his dad was right. Not sure why I remembered that part of the purchase in particular, now over 20 years later.)

Up until that time I was usually found wearing army surplus jackets from the local army/navy store. But after my buddy got his jacket I decided I wanted one too. I didn't get my first leather jacket until I graduated from high school. My second jacket was purchased in grad school as I had bought a motorcycle to commute to school and needed some riding leathers. The third was bought after I started working full time. Fast forward almost ten years and then I found TFL ... the rest is history.

 

[Silver Dollar]

My very first flight jacket was a G-1 I wore for 10 years. The jacket that started my flight jacket collection was a really bad copy of an A-2, at the time I didn't have a clue how bad it was, [huh] I bought it at a 'yuppie' surplus store, (now that's an oxymoron in itself), that was going out of business. This store didn't sell real military surplus, just things that looked like military type clothing to people who wanted to be trendy and fashionable...that's a yuppie surplus store. The jacket was on sale for 1/2 price, at $ 60, and I've always been interested in WW2 aviation and especially fascinated with 'nose art'. After this jacket, I kept buying more and more.

Notice the trendy cowboy metal collar tips, the pre-distressed leather, the split down the center of the back.

I remember that jacket!! I have absolutely no idea where they got the idea for those metal collar tips. I read in one of the ads for that jacket that the wearers many times customized their jackets with those collar tips to look cool. I thought that was the dopiest thing I ever heard and I don't use the word dopey in a good context. I remember thinking what idiot came up with that line.

My first was an equally bad A2 I got from the original Avirex line back in 1978. I remember the catalog it came out of with the macho models with the wide shoulders and skinny waists. There I stood in mine with the shoulders hanging off me and barely able to zip the damn jacket up. It was made of cowhide, was dark brown, almost black and was as shiny as the top of the Chrysler Building after polishing day.

 

[PADDY]

As a child in the UK I loved to watch a series in the 70's called THE PATHFINDERS (anyone remember it, about a Pathfinder Squadron of Lancasters?). That year, I went and bought an Irvin jacket from an old market stall in an area called originally, THE MARKETS in Belfast (no longer exists, it was bulldozed). That was my first flying jacket.

 

[Dav]

This was the first leather jacket I ever owned, in fact I still own it, made by Toff of London who I know nothing about, it was brought for me by my mother when I was 14 as something to wear to school plus I was very keen on getting a motorbike when I was 16. The school bit didn't go to well as I was banned from wearing it there and to this day I've no idea what they had against it especially as several boys in the year above mine were allowed to wear theirs. Anyway that was 30 years ago. Although not the best quality it did save me several times when comming of my bikes during my teens into early twenties untill I grew out of it. For some reason I just could never bring myself to get rid of it I suppose it just reminds me of so many great times I had when I was younger.

 

[Ugarte]

Good for you Dav. I'm happy to see you saved that jacket. I described my first leather jacket in this thread where you can see my son wearing the hand-me-down. Since that pic I've had it cleaned and had the cuffs changed.

I mention all this because my parents were very resistant to the purchase of an MC style leather jacket, though I was actually riding a motorcycle at the time (age 13-15). They were less hesitant to consider a "bomber jacket" from the Sears Wishbook. The black MC jacket held a menacing connotation for "decent" folk back in the mid '70's. Possibly because the world was on the cusp of the Punk Movement and that jacket was still the fashion choice of outlaws and troublemakers of a variety of stripe. I'm not entirely surprised to hear that you got bounced from school for it.

I suspect that all changed by the mid 80's when the height of fashion for young women was often a short floral skirt, a beat-to-crap men's MC jacket and a pair of black Doc Marten's boots. For better or worse, Brando's Schott Perfecto was no longer taken as seriously as it had once been.

In celebration of this stylistic affectation, I believe I will wear the MC jacket I inherited from my father a couple of years ago to work tonight. It's far too pristine looking and needs some rough wear ASAP. :thumb:

Mark
.

 

[Atterbury Dodd]

My 1940's Horsehide belted jacket started it for me. Being broke stopped it

 

[apba1166]

1982. A Korean-made black Mirage flight/cycle, quilted lining and great thick stand-up collar, with a hood zipped inside. I loved that thick stand-up collar and used the hood in rain and crummy weather. The next year I made some decent money, and was walking past the same store, and they were having a sale (uh-oh). So I got two more: a heavy black Schott bomber, better for winter, also with thick stand-up collar, and a detachable fox-lined hood that hung from it (one day I detached the hood and it has ever since been on the closet shelf); and a black rough-out Avirex with knit collar, which proved to be as tough a jacket as I ever had (In 27 years went through me, two of my sons, and now back to me, all the nap gone from the suede, finish is like smooth charcoal now). That was it for a long long time. At the time I neither knew or cared about the makers; in fact, most of the jackets I've bought have just been because I liked the jacket--and many turned out to be talked about on this forum which has made it a lot of fun to learn about.

 

[eClairvaux]

My first was this ugly one, which I bought from my first summer job in Paris when I was 16:

Wore it through most of high school and was totally convinced it was the hottest item back then

 

[Spitfire]

This is fun!
My first "US Fighterpilot" jacket was very similar to the one you had, eClairvaux - also bought in Paris in a shop near Les Halles in 1979.
I knew about Avirex/Cockpit A2 and man did I want one!!! But they were in USA and I was here - so I went for the lookalike. (Little did we know back then)
Later - still wishing for a Avirex with PinUp on the back - I bought a A2 version from Aviation Leathercraft in UK - and painted my own version:
Inspired by Len Deightons book Goodby Mickey Mouse I did a painting of Mickey painting bombs on the back of my "A2" jacket.

But my first jacket was before the "ugly" french one.
A "Irvin" from ALC in UK - bought in 1975 or 76. They had just opened when I bought it.
Later my father got the jacket, and it still exists (I believe). If it does, I'll try to get some pics of it.
It was from their early production and very, very different from the huge, teddybearlike ones they do today.

 

[eClairvaux]

This is fun!
My first "US Fighterpilot" jacket was very similar to the one you had, eClairvaux - also bought in Paris in a shop near Les Halles in 1979.

What a conincidence! That's shop I got mine from! Although I bought it in the 80ies, but they were at Les Halles!

In fact the leather is quite thick, but lost a lot of color over the years and the woolen cuffs became completely unravelled.

 

[Phantomfixer]

Great Idea.......Willis & Geiger was my first leather jacket. An A-2 of course. I bought it in 1985 from Aviators World, in CA. Remember them? I was stationed at Ramstein AB W. Germany. I remember when the package arrived. I opened it up and knew this was IT!!! The jacket was the best A-2 ever. Of course it was, it was the first. It was also a sz 40. after 12 years I let it go. It was painted up from the book "Ready for Duty" Swinging on a Star. awesome. If i can dig out a picture tonight I will post it.

 

[JimWagner]

The G1 I was issued in the Navy in the 60's.

 

[anon`]

Only ever owned one leather jacket. Not a great one and doesn't fit any longer (too big!), and I can't afford to replace it with something decent right now. However, the jacket that really started it all for me, not even leather, is my grandfather's Ike jacket. It does fit, now, and I wear it all the time.