IT’S THE BOMB
The unique vintage jackets that everyone from Lady Gaga to Axl Rose can’t get enough of
AYLER Young started out playing in bands — now he’s outfitting them. The 37-year-old musician unexpectedly stumbled into a career in fashion after an obsession with re-creating the perfect bomber jacket prompted him to start sewing the silk toppers himself in the spring of 2016. But it wasn’t until he ran into a manager for Guns N’ Roses at the Los Angeles hot spot Chateau Marmont that his DIY duds went mainstream.
“I was wearing this blue silk jacket I had made, and he was like, ‘Where did you get that? Will you make them for my band?’ ” Young tells The Post. “I was like, ‘Guns N’ Roses? Are you kidding me? Of course I’ll do it.’ ”
Nine months later, Young has not only produced the hair-metal band’s blockbuster reunion-tour merch, he’s also launched his own outerwear line Philip Ayler, which he’s showing at New York Fashion Week: Men’s on Tuesday. Made with scraps of vintage fabric from Chanel, Balenciaga and Armani, his fancy bombers started attracting lots of attention. Suddenly, he was not only fitting Axl Rose and Slash with their own custom coats, but also friends such as Lady Gaga and Gigi Hadid “I’m selling them all over the world now,” says Young, whose jackets retail for $1,500 to $2,500 online, as well as at What Goes Around Comes Around boutiques in New York and LA. “It’s amazing how quickly something can spread.”
Young previously worked in the entertainment industry, starting as an off-Broadway musical director in 2002 and later moving to the Tribeca Film Festival, where he helped manage events and ticketing. In 2014, he released a solo album of uptempo guitar-based pop, “Por- tal.”
He hadn’t thought about fashion design until he dreamed of a burgundy bomber jacket one night about a year ago.
“I woke up in the morning and couldn’t get that jacket out of my head,” says Young. Fifteen minutes after stumbling out of bed, he received a call from a stylist friend, who arrived at his house with a gift.
“She had this thing in her hand, and it was this burgundy bomber jacket,” he says, marveling at the cosmic coincidence. “I put it on, and it became my favorite thing of all time.”
Young took the jacket to a tailor so he could have a pattern made to create infinite versions of his favorite garment.
“It’s really the perfect item of clothing for Los Angeles,” says Young, who manufactures his limited-edition jackets locally. And although he sources fabrics from high-end mills all over Europe and New York, he still buys his ribbon from the West Hollywood, Calif., shop down the street, where Slash’s costume-designer mom, Ola Hudson, who died in 2009, was also a regular.
“The owner has known Slash since he was 4 years old,” he says. “Can you imagine?”