The Black Leather Jacket

Ever since a leather-jacketed Marlon Brando slouched across the screen in The Wild One, the jacket’s mixture of animal magnetism, brooding menace, and sexual provocation has made it a must-have for hipsters, rebels, and fashionistas. This entertaining book chronicles the leather jacket from its roots among World War I flying aces to its present incarnation in high fashion. Along the way, it shows how every generation and subculture — including the Hell’s Angels, beats, punks, movie stars, counterculturists, and fetishists — has made the leather jacket its own.