Why You Should Own A Leather Jacket: A Memoir
Why should you own a leather jacket? Well for one, it might be the most classic, badass item of clothing to grace this precious earth. It has donned the backs of greasers, rockers, models, try hards, posers, hipsters, bikers and every subcategory in-between.
To own one is to own yourself. It puts you in control of many situations and, likewise, can make you feel out of control. Quite a romantic way of looking at something as simple as an item of clothing, but something is to be said about the empowerment behind the fabric.
All in all, clothing is important. It gives us identity, gives us purpose and invokes emotion. Anyone who tells you otherwise is simply wrong. Maybe it is just a girl thing, but I dress for myself, a conviction that often gets abandon by our attention-seeking media gratification. I know the "instant gratification" of our generation is a term that gets overused and seemingly null to our demographic, yet it is a phenomena that goes way pass our screens, shaping our culture and how we dress. I understand and also hate that I need to upload everything to feel like I got my "use" out of an outfit. Definitely doesn't mean I am going to stop doing it, I know myself too well.
Let me take you back to a time when leather jackets ruled the social scene and why just throwing one on today makes "faking it" as easy as pie, because why not. Also, it is important I tell you now, I am not competing for views here. I love the reaction I have gotten and I hope people truly read my work because I think it is narrative that runs in our heads all day but never gets a chance to be transcribed. So if you are cool (like a leather jacket), stay along with me, because the last thing I want this blog to turn into is "this is my cliche reason why you should be a girl boss," kind of storyline.
It began when the leather bomber was introduced to fighter pilots back in the first World War. I won't give you a history lesson, but these jackets encompasses the concept of cool, a concept so instinctively desired yet impossible to fake. A wearable talisman that hangs in your closet, goes above and beyond this conversation, emulating all the stories of rebellion and victory that time will tell.
I was scrolling through my VSCO the other day and found the above picture of my brother, Sam, probably no older than 11, and thought wow that is just cool. It embodies an act of rebellion that I think a leather jacket does as well, as he didn't even know it yet. I think this is what clothing does for a lot of people, just as it did for those before, like Elvis, James Dean, Steve Mcqueen, The Ramones, Madonna, Joan Jett, even The Beatles. It was a traverse time in the 20's when a man named Irving Scott sold the first motorcycle jacket prototype for 5.50 at Harley Davison, the fever of cool light up the united states, one biker gang at a time.
I am laughing at myself while typing this because it reminds me so much of the scene from The Devil Wears Prada where Miranda gives her famous monologue on how two seemingly identical blue belts are so radically different.
"Miranda Priestly: 'This... stuff'? Oh. Okay. I see. You think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select... I don't know... that lumpy blue sweater, for instance because you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue, it's not turquoise. It's not lapis. It's actually cerulean. And you're also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar de la Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves Saint Laurent... wasn't it who showed cerulean military jackets? I think we need a jacket here. And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different designers. And then it, uh, filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic Casual Corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and it's sort of comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you're wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room from a pile of stuff."
Not only is this one of my all time favorite movies and what I like to call my "sick movies" (ones that you watch when you are sick it ranks up there with 13 Going on 30) but it also speaks so much true. The quote, is everything I am trying to convey to my reader about clothing and leather jackets, that every item we dress ourselves in is a choice and it is in your power to chose for yourself how to participate in that realm, either by void or by virtue. So rather you find the power in a leather jacket as I do, or you have some other item of clothing that communicates what you want, the power to make that statement is in your hands--and that is a pretty cool thing.
-Caro
