Remember the leather jacket fad of the 70's?

I grew up in the 70's/80's in the US and was just remembering how there were leather jacket stores everywhere in the late 70's, and everyone was wearing leather jackets...the short waisted fashion jacket style w/tight highwaisted wide leg jeans LOL. Anyone else remember this era?

was acquired by CVS and became ubiquitous in every mall

Yep there was Wilsons but there were also a lot of little mom n pop leather stores around also. You'd walk in and the owner would be decked out in head to toe leather lol. I went to lots of shops like that when I was in my teens looking for a jacket. All stocked to the gills with racks of jackets but never anything cool

I remember that look down here too. We never had the equivalent of Wilsons but we had a smaller leather goods and clothing store called Brandmans. These jackets were mainly available through departments stores and the kinds of mom 'n' pop stores mentioned above. Memories... I can smell Brute 33 and see the dreadful sideburns - an aesthetic that some men were still right into in the mid 1980's, despite the sniggering of teenagers.

It wasn't until Indiana Jones created a craze for worn looking flight jackets and A2's that this look changed. Then, by the late 1980's, everyone was wearing Perfecto style cross zip bike jackets.

I don't know about elsewhere, but here in the UK worn 1940s and 1950s leather jackets - especially WW2 flight jackets - were popular among dissident youth throughout the 1960s and 70s. Personally I got my first A2 around 1967 and my first Irvin around 1971. So when first the Indiana Jones, and then the Top Gun thing happened, it was quite a surprise to suddenly find myself in fashion!

One thing you realize by a certain age (ahem) is that everything comes round again (and again) - so if you just wear what you like, at some stage you will almost inevitably find yourself wearing the height of fashion.

Seb Lucas said:

I remember that look down here too. We never had the equivalent of Wilsons but we had a smaller leather goods and clothing store called Brandmans. These jackets were mainly available through departments stores and the kinds of mom 'n' pop stores mentioned above. Memories... I can smell Brute 33 and see the dreadful sideburns - an aesthetic that some men were still right into in the mid 1980's, despite the sniggering of teenagers.

It wasn't until Indiana Jones created a craze for worn looking flight jackets and A2's that this look changed. Then, by the late 1980's, everyone was wearing Perfecto style cross zip bike jackets.

View attachment 97584

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Is it wrong that I really like that jacket? I have a soft spot for wide collars and tight fitting 70's esque leather jackets. Especially the shorter ones.

ton312 said:

Is it wrong that I really like that jacket? I have a soft spot for wide collars and tight fitting 70's esque leather jackets. Especially the shorter ones.

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Ditto.

70's style was cool. The coolest.

I could get on with the pictured jacket very well. I have a couple of similar sorts,
P1230600 crop by Michael A2012, on Flickr
and a deerskin model,
P1230521 crop by Michael A2012, on Flickr
And quite a few longer types like this Schott
11-23-2016 Today's Clothes by Michael A2012, on Flickr
And a few long types like this Bert Paley, which I think cost more than $1000 in the 70s dollars
1-8-2017 Today's Clothes Coated Edition by Michael A2012, on Flickr

So count me a fan of the big collar,
Michael

In the late '70s, when I was finally able to earn a little money, I went to my local Army/Navy store (at that time Army/Navy stores contained real Army/Navy surplus), and bought myself my first leather jacket - a Cooper bomber jacket. I wore it for decades until it basically fell apart.

We used to go down to Orchard st in lower Manhattan...leather jackets galore......

One of the many 'Mod' fashions of London's 1960's was a leather jacket in the same style as a suit jacket. It was skillfully designed not to look too much like the leather coats of The Gestapo, after all, we were still just 20 years post WW2. Londoners of a certain age might remember Kensington Market, where I bought my 60's leather.
Another popular fashion in the early 70's was a military style shirt made from chamois leather. Both the shirt and the jacket came and went, cost a fortune, but both were a must have on everyone's Christmas wish list.

I have my Dad’s 70’s jacket


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I still remember "drooling" over the Leathers in the Sears Catalogs every year. My parents never could understand. It was probably just the printing dyes, but it seemed that you could even "smell" the jackets coming right off the page.

We also had a Wilson's in the mall, but in those days (Late 70's -- early '90's) you could also find racks of leather jackets in the JC Penny's, and the Sears stores. All were of questionable quality, but I guess I never even suspected that. Most were some type of cowhide, you rarely ever saw the lambskin models until the '90's it seemed. I don't have any of those anymore...

ton312 said:

Is it wrong that I really like that jacket? I have a soft spot for wide collars and tight fitting 70's esque leather jackets. Especially the shorter ones.

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Hey, there's no right or wrong in clothing, there's only prejudice. I personally don't like the 1970's much (although I preferred them in many ways to the 1980's) but there are one or two clothing items from the time I do like. Mostly I hated the endless polyester body shirts and lurid patterns.

Michael A said:

I could get on with the pictured jacket very well. I have a couple of similar sorts,
P1230600 crop by Michael A2012, on Flickr
and a deerskin model,
P1230521 crop by Michael A2012, on Flickr
And quite a few longer types like this Schott
11-23-2016 Today's Clothes by Michael A2012, on Flickr
And a few long types like this Bert Paley, which I think cost more than $1000 in the 70s dollars
1-8-2017 Today's Clothes Coated Edition by Michael A2012, on Flickr

So count me a fan of the big collar,
Michael

Click to expand...

You wear those all so well, and make the clothing from the 70s look like quality pieces! Not quite the leather of a Horween or Shinki, but those are very very cool designs.

Pulled this back off the Trucker/Whatever thread. I like the 70s look. The big lapels on this 70s Levi are fun. I get comments from people when I wear it.

nightandthecity said:

I don't know about elsewhere, but here in the UK worn 1940s and 1950s leather jackets - especially WW2 flight jackets - were popular among dissident youth throughout the 1960s and 70s. Personally I got my first A2 around 1967 and my first Irvin around 1971. So when first the Indiana Jones, and then the Top Gun thing happened, it was quite a surprise to suddenly find myself in fashion!

Click to expand...

The seventies were still a period in which the UK and US were quite divergent in their popular culture. The impression I've been given - fairly or not - is that the US was much more prosperous than the UK for the duration. In the UK it was a long, slow slide into the eighties, which was financially a very difficult timed for many (for every flash yuppie there were a dozen families facing the brunt of mine and factory closures). Leather jackets had their place in fashion in both decades over here, but only a very specific, 'safe' kind of jacket was in with the mainstream. Typically a shapeless, brown blouson, or a blazer style. Leather jackets of a certain style - specifically, the black leather motorcycle jacket in al its variants - were for the outsider, the rebel. Despite the "year zero" philosophy, the punks took much of their influence in this regard from the rockers before them; while The Leather Jacket was not the punk uniform it is portrayed as in retrospect (they were rarely seen at all on the early London scene from early-mid 76 to May 77), it was this transition from one outsider tribe to another that saw the likes of the Perfecto style largely dissassociated from motorcycles and more seen as part of a specific musical style and its adherents for many. Borwn leather blousons were safe, worn by youth leaders and bought by your parents ifyou were to ask for a leather jacket. My parents bought me a black leather blouson one Christmas. Nicely made thing, brushed cotton flannel lining. Tried it on, and that's as far as it went. Actually, I wore it to church on Christmas morning, but I think they realised I hated it when I couldn't get out of it fast enough once we were inside. It was returned as soon as the shops opened again, and I ended up with my first Perfecto style. Wish I had a photo of the label from it now: I recall it said made in NYC and Genuine Nake Cowhide on it, but not the brand. Wasn't a Schott, I know that. Lovely thing, though. Wore it until I looked like Joey Ramone circa 1976 in it, then sold it on cause it was just too small. I remember being specifically forbidden from wearing it into Belfast (which I ignored every chance I got, of course). It was still considered pretty edgy - this was December 1990 - by my parents' generation when I got it. Which was laughable to me then, and even moreso now. I remember an aunt buying a brown leather jacket for my cousin instead of a black one because she got some idiotic notion in her head that "the IRA wear black leather."

One thing you realize by a certain age (ahem) is that everything comes round again (and again) - so if you just wear what you like, at some stage you will almost inevitably find yourself wearing the height of fashion.

Click to expand...

Ha, ain't that the truth.

GHT said:

One of the many 'Mod' fashions of London's 1960's was a leather jacket in the same style as a suit jacket. It was skillfully designed not to look too much like the leather coats of The Gestapo, after all, we were still just 20 years post WW2. Londoners of a certain age might remember Kensington Market, where I bought my 60's leather.
Another popular fashion in the early 70's was a military style shirt made from chamois leather. Both the shirt and the jacket came and went, cost a fortune, but both were a must have on everyone's Christmas wish list.
View attachment 97615 View attachment 97616

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Still have my dad's seveties leather blazer: WIDE lapels. I wore it in the mid-late nineties as a young punk visually referencing Carlito's Way, if you can imagine such a thing.

Edward said:

The seventies were still a period in which the UK and US were quite divergent in their popular culture. The impression I've been given - fairly or not - is that the US was much more prosperous than the UK for the duration. In the UK it was a long, slow slide into the eighties, which was financially a very difficult timed for many (for every flash yuppie there were a dozen families facing the brunt of mine and factory closures). Leather jackets had their place in fashion in both decades over here, but only a very specific, 'safe' kind of jacket was in with the mainstream. Typically a shapeless, brown blouson, or a blazer style. Leather jackets of a certain style - specifically, the black leather motorcycle jacket in al its variants - were for the outsider, the rebel. Despite the "year zero" philosophy, the punks took much of their influence in this regard from the rockers before them; while The Leather Jacket was not the punk uniform it is portrayed as in retrospect (they were rarely seen at all on the early London scene from early-mid 76 to May 77), it was this transition from one outsider tribe to another that saw the likes of the Perfecto style largely dissassociated from motorcycles and more seen as part of a specific musical style and its adherents for many. Borwn leather blousons were safe, worn by youth leaders and bought by your parents ifyou were to ask for a leather jacket. My parents bought me a black leather blouson one Christmas. Nicely made thing, brushed cotton flannel lining. Tried it on, and that's as far as it went. Actually, I wore it to church on Christmas morning, but I think they realised I hated it when I couldn't get out of it fast enough once we were inside. It was returned as soon as the shops opened again, and I ended up with my first Perfecto style. Wish I had a photo of the label from it now: I recall it said made in NYC and Genuine Nake Cowhide on it, but not the brand. Wasn't a Schott, I know that. Lovely thing, though. Wore it until I looked like Joey Ramone circa 1976 in it, then sold it on cause it was just too small. I remember being specifically forbidden from wearing it into Belfast (which I ignored every chance I got, of course). It was still considered pretty edgy - this was December 1990 - by my parents' generation when I got it. Which was laughable to me then, and even moreso now. I remember an aunt buying a brown leather jacket for my cousin instead of a black one because she got some idiotic notion in her head that "the IRA wear black leather."



Ha, ain't that the truth.



Still have my dad's seveties leather blazer: WIDE lapels. I wore it in the mid-late nineties as a young punk visually referencing Carlito's Way, if you can imagine such a thing.

Click to expand...

Carlito's Way! Love that one.

The band (Focus) which I think shows off the 70s style in its full glory. Clasically trained musicians but injecting greatly lacking HUMOR into popular music with their hit "Hocus Pocus"...if it were up to me and I could revise the proto-punk narrative, I'd put them next to the MC5 or Dolls for that very reason. There are hints of the punk spirit found in these early 70s bands. Don't get me started with the 60s garage rockers (which many saw the label as derogatory and not really applicable...cue in the Remains, Knickerbockers, etc who were chasing commercial success and could have passed for the Stones or Beatles but were devalued into the "garage" label, especially later). Some of that stuff made the Stooges sound tame. I think Legs McNeil had the Seeds in mind, among others, when he coined the term "punk". But they weren't really reacting to anything, mainly short hair intertwined with teenage hormones,so no reactionary movement unlike punk fighting stadium rock boredom.