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Men\'s Distressed Vintage Leather Jacket 60\'s - 70\'s
This leather jacket has been around the block. I recall that I got it in the mid 80’s, probably around ’85. It’s a hazy purchase date because it was the East Village, NYC in the mid 80’s and you can probably imagine any number of reasons for the hazy memory... enough said about that. It was vintage then - I was told at the time it was from the 1960’s-70’s by the salesperson at the secondhand shop (I think it was on East 8th or 9th Street or possibly St. Marks Place).
Unfortunately, I don’t recall the label in the jacket, but I had it relined in Italy some time in the 90’s, so the manufacturer is probably going to remain a mystery. I’m a fashion & art photographer here in NYC, so I did get around quite a bit back then and my hang-outs were CBGB’s for bands, Palladium for favorite club (I even partied with Andy Warhol and his crew at his birthday party there). I was a poor, twenty-one year old guy trying to be an artist in NYC - It was a pretty great time to live in NYC and the East Village.
In 1990-91 the jacket also kept me warm in Berlin. I had a studio there for a year or so - a few streets off of Alexanderplatz, right after the wall came down. Berlin was also pretty great back then. The jacket was also my second skin for a few years in Milan. Milan in the 90’s was a great place for a photographer that wanted to shoot fashion back then.
Anyway, I reminisce about all that because there is history and a life in a leather jacket like this… I got it in the 80’s, but I\'m imagining that somebody in downtown NYC owned it before me - I’m imagining maybe some folk singer in the 60’s Greenwich Village, or some punk band member in the 70’s. It definitely had a full life before I owned it. Then I got to wear it for a while. Now someone else gets to have their experience in it. It’s a great jacket. Some stuff needs to be passed on. I’m getting older now, so it’s time to pass it on.
Since I worked in fashion in NYC & Europe, I ended up going to a lot of parties and events with fashion people over the years. And of course I always got a lot of compliments and positive comments about the jacket. I also got a lot of offers to buy it. A designer from Ralph Lauren once offered me $5K for it. (He wanted to copy it for RL). But more recently people just wanted to have it. So, now that I\'m ready to let it go, I thought I\'d see if anyone on liked it.
I’m 6’1” and 165 lbs. so a skinny guy and probably not fitting the jacket that well anymore. (I\'m guessing that it\'s about a size 44 or so, as I\'m a 42 jacket size). It was always a little big on me, unless I had a sweater underneath (as I did most of the time in the fall & winter). But it was good for me. Since it’s vintage and leather, just usethe photos with the tape measure for sizing. That’s me in the photos and I wear large sizes, sometimes XL and long sizes, because I’m tall and thin. So, just imagine a tall skinny guy at CBGB’s in the 80’s, enjoying the scene.
The jacket is distressed, naturally - just years of life, no added fake distressing. So the jacket will likely need a little attention if you\'re going to wear it on a regular basis (I tried pointing out the most distressed places in the photos). The designer from RL wanted to take it apart and copy it.. maybe that\'s a good use for it, too. But I like the idea of it getting another life, though.
Check out the photos. Send me any questions. Hopefully I can answer them for you.
