Saturday, October 31, 2009

Leather jacket


For other uses of this and similar phrases, see leatherjacket.

A leather motorcycle jacket.

Leather jacket
A leather jacket is a type of clothing, a jacket made of leather. The jacket has usually a brown, dark grey or black color. Leather jackets can be styled in a variety of ways, and different versions have been associated with different subcultures. For instance, the leather jacket has often been associated with bikers, military aviators, rock stars, punks, goths, metalheads, rivetheads and police, who have worn versions designed for protective purposes and occasionally for their potentially intimidating appearance.
In the 20th century the leather jacket achieved iconic status, in major part through film. Examples include the Perfecto motorcycle jacket worn by Marlon Brando's Johnny Strabler character in The Wild One (1953), Honor Blackman as Cathy Gale in The Avengers, and Michael Pare in Eddie and the Cruisers (1983). As such, these all served to popularize leather jackets in American and British youth from the "greaser" subculture in the 1950s and early 1960s. A later depiction of this style of jacket and time was "The Fonz" in the television series "Happy Days" which was produced in the 1970s and 1980s but depicted life in the 1950s and 1960s. The Fonz's leather jacket is now housed in the Smithsonian Institution, and the Grease movie duo has also since popularized leather jackets with their T-Birds male clique. Back then a leather jacket would have cost between $7 to $20 which was expensive considering the time.

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