The Herald - The Herald Magazine
When is it too old to wear leather? 12
To buy are not to buy? Brian Beacom examines the psychology behind this controversial fashion icon
INEVER imagined in all my life that I could turn into Cary Grant. No, not in the sense that I’ve metamorphosed into a handsome, debonair sophisticate with the smoothest of voices and even smoother ad-libs. And we certainly never attended the same charm school. But a new connection has formed; Todd McEwen once wrote the amusing short story Cary Grant’s Suit, a satire focusing on the perfect Savile Row two-piece the film star wore in the classic film North By Northwest.
In tracing the suit’s journey, the story offered insight into the psychological make-up of the actor himself.
I never imagined for a moment, however, that the purchase of a leather jacket could result in a similar essay in exploration and existentialism, asking the question; are we what we wear?
And, more pointedly, should someone who has a bus concession pass, once fancied Petula Clark and can remember Rawhide even be allowed to wear a biker jacket? The wonderings and worries begin exactly a year ago…
I awake one day, stricken, out of the blue, with a clothing desire unfelt since the need to have a pair of animal track Wayfinders shoes back in 1966.
All I know is I need to wear a biker jacket, just as badly as Cary Grant needed to have his suits Savile Row tailored, just as Burton needed Taylor. Just as Taylor needed to wear diamonds the size of Cary Grant’s grin.
What prompts this jacket desire? I try to find out by reading the online comments of fashion designer Matthew Miller.
“Biker jackets are a very purist symbol of rebellion and freedom,” he writes.
“They are iconic and manage to transcend subcultures and time.”
If that’s true, and I’m not arguing, am I trying to rebel? I don’t think so. Baby boomers just get a little moody from time to time. And, while biker jackets may transcend time, I’m not sure I’m likely to transcend anything other than a tricky metaphor.
I ditch the psychology for the moment to address the practical, to wonder what type of leather jacket I could see myself wear. The option range is immense and I’m forced to recall the ominous words of writer AA Gill. Gill once warned to be extremely cautious of clothing when reaching mature years: “You can’t wear clothes with a practical application after the age you would realistically be expected to perform the job their designed for.”
He was right. I have to factor in that I’m not going to ride a heavy motorbike again, so I don’t need to emulate Brando in The Wild One and buy a jacket that’s as thick as a Triumph’s tyres. Nor am I set to flee from Germans across Bavarian fields like McQueen in The Great Escape, so I won’t want a little bomber jacket.
And it’s almost a given that I’m unlikely ever to pilot a plane, so my leather jacket won’t have a fur collar. I certainly won’t be moonwalking or caging wild animals, so lurid Michael Jackson or Tiger King styles and colours are out.
As for sheepskin? Well only John Motson, or Penny Lane in Cameron Crowe’s cult movie Almost Famous could every carry
that off. Instinctively, I know to avoid certain types of leather jackets; nothing of length, which reminds of Tony Soprano or a supporting actor in a Guy Richie film. The jacket can’t be too aggressive either, suggesting a Ramone or a Danny Zuko. I just don’t have the sneer.
Esquire magazine agrees with Gill I have to be very, very careful of my choice. “Leather jackets, in the wrong hands, can be a style disaster: a little bit silver-convertible with-cream-leather-interiors, a little bit ‘Mum’s not coming back, Dad’.”
THIS is getting more complicated than I could have imagined. I need to choose carefully then, but where? The quest begins, looking in shops, boutiques, big stories, online. Even at websites across the States. Nothing hits the mark; the collar is too wide, the jacket too long. Too flash. Too many buckles.
The answer descends one morning, however, just moments after ascending a Newcastle-bound train where I’m set to interview Sting. Thinking ahead for the mag feature pics, I’m checking out online images of the Geordie boy and discovering the 68-year-old is wearing a leather jacket that looks uber cool.
It’s dark-brown and biker-lite. It’s the sort a Hell’s Angel might wear if he were a fan of musical theatre. It’s the sort of jacket that would offer the wearer protection only against a gentle summer breeze, or if they fell off their hog onto a thick sheepskin rug. It’s tight and short. It’s perfect.
I begin to try to source similar. (I know; I should have asked Sting where he got his, but the interview captured the mind.)
I check out countless clothing websites, shops in Glasgow, nothing. Undaunted, I search out Ronnie Smith, a one-time pop star with The Beatstalkers turned leather craftsman who made me a great (bomber) leather jacket some 35 years previously. I find Ronnie, still going strong, but he doesn’t make jackets any more. (Only does repairs.)
Undaunted, and inarguably daft, I expand my search and discover a bespoke leather jacket maker who just happens to live in Ludlow, a little market town near the Welsh border. A six-and-a-half-hour drive later, I’m giving the genial Martin Pryce (another ex-rock guitarist) my measurements and leaving him to it. Yet, now comes the time for the introspection and worry about why I needed to wear animal skin on my back. By chance, the following day I’m watching the Simpsons and my fear of looking ridiculous is staring right back at me in cartoon form.
Homer is riding off on a bike wearing a leather jacket, shouting to the family: “Remember to rebel against authority, kids!”
Am I, like Homer, a two-dimensional clown, a rebel without a clue?
But if a leather jacket on an aged back can’t look cool, what’s the cut-off point? It goes without saying that Sting is clearly an exception, given he’s an ageless Geordie god. But are you too old at 40? Or 50? Or 60? Can you take the grandchildren to McDonald’s wearing James Dean? Could a Sir Captain Tom feasibly wear a leather containing poppers, studs and cross-body zips? The self-doubt is cranking up. In the search for support I turn to the online thoughts of top American fashion stylist Ashley Weston, who is discussing biker jackets on her forum.
But I don’t get any. Weston is, in fact, giving men of a certain age who were leather bikers a hiding.
“Clients who are 45-plus should seriously avoid them because wearing them makes it look as though you are having a midlife crises,” she says in a “don’t-even-think-about-it you-sad-b ****** ” voice.
Weston adds; “Even when you get to the bomber style, it still looks as if you are trying too hard to be young – and
another argument for the biker jacket, I make to myself. The generational barriers aren’t really as high these days. Men can wear jeans into a ripe old age, can’t they? We’ve moved on. We’re not living Brief Encounter lives any more. No-one expects a man to wear a shirt and tie for dinner. We don’t all need to wear car coats.
What’s wrong with looking a little like a Geordie rock star?
And can’t the older woman wear a biker jacket too? Not according to veteran fashion writer Sarah Mower. “Everyone past the age of 40 needs a ‘mutton monitor’,” she declares. “Should one of our [older women] number be tempted to revert to Suzi Quatro mode, she’d just have to be stopped.”
Mower adds: “The rock chick mantle must always be passed to those in their 20s. Fact. Even Kate Moss [mid-40s] will be pushing the mutton-button with that one any minute now.”
NOW I’m depressed. My buff-jacket friend suggests I check out the Italian short story for help. And it’s powerful stuff. Cesare Pavese’s The Leather Jacket is an emblematic rites-of-passage tale in which a young man realises the sexuality of an older woman via the leather jacket she wears.
The jacket is a weapon when worn on her body. The unzipping process a technique to reveal all a female has to offer – and deny, if she so chooses. The jacket is a powerful motif for the sexual psychology played out in the pages.
There we go! That cheers me a little, because I love the idea of a woman of certain years looking sexy and feeling in control. And who could truly argue that biker-jacket lovers such as Debbie Harry, Jane Fonda or Michelle Pfeiffer are in any way mutton?
So, if women of mature years can wear them, I tell myself, why can’t men throw out a little sexual energy? Thankfully, Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman agrees. “I think you can wear anything – it depends how you look in it,” she says.
“The only time you possibly shouldn’t wear a leather jacket is in your coffin.”
But now I have the endorsement, what seems to be emerging in my head is I don’t need it. I agree with Linda Grant in The Guardian who wrote: “We loathe, and are frightened of, the idea of dressing old, for to dress old is to have someone to take you at face value: that you are old.”
However, having looked at all the arguments, for and against the senior person’s sartorial choice, I’ve come to understand why I have to have the biker jacket.
While Cary Grant’s suit revealed the actor to “be” his suit, to be defined by his stitching, his perfect cloth and neat lapels, that’s not the case with the leather jacket at all.
The truth is I don’t really feel old. The truth is don’t want to be subversive or inhabit a subculture and I’m fairly sure my fears of loss of manliness and death to be no greater than that of the next man – or woman.
I just fancy one.