It was with the slogan Leather motor clothing for mens, launched for the opening of the all weathers shop in USA, that leather entered the world of fashion in 1905. The model in the advertising campaign wore a white lace bodice, combined with trousers and boots as a biker.
Since entering the fashion world, this dress has been a classic in the history of fashion. The first man to wear a leather jacket was Mary Mavent, an aviator, who is seen wearing a motorcycle leather jacket in a 1910 photograph.
In the 1931 film Dishonored, the charming Marlene Dietrich would become the first woman in the world of cinema to wear the perfecto, in fact the actress turned the leather jacket into a feminine dress.
In the post-war period, due to its robustness, the Perfecto was used by the American police. He is with the character of Arthur Fonzarelli in Happy Days and John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John in Grease that the leather jacket comes to represent the symbol of motorcyclists, as demonstrated by the various zippers on the pockets and the sleeves up to the thumb to allow them to take on the appropriate size when the arm reaches the handlebars, and usually the leather jacket is Worn over a T-shirt and a pair of cuffed jeans and boots.
After the first success of the 50s the leather jacket returns to have new life starting from the second half of the 60s, just remember the famous leather jacket with fringes with which Jimi Hendrix took the stage at Woodstock.
But it will be with the advent of Punk in the 70s that the legendary style of the leather jacket will take hold. A perfect combination will be created between punk, a rebel musical genre born in garages, and the leather jacket, a symbol of rebellion since the 1950s. And it was precisely the punks who gave the name Chiodo to the leather jacket, so called because of a nail that punks carried in their pocket. The peculiarity of this garment is the three pockets with diagonal zips plus a central zip, along the waist and the color is strictly black.
The definitive entry of the leather jacket into the world of fashion will be with the English designer Vienne Westwood, who in 1971 opened a small shop, Let it rock , in London together with her partner Malcolm McLaren, future manager of the Sex Pistols. Heeding ideas from street style, the English designer transformed the leather jacket into a modern garment and helped create the punk style. Over the years, the leather jacket would become a symbol of groups such as the Ramones, The Stooges, and the Sax Pistols.
The real change in the world of fashion in this period was due to the designer Yves Saint Laurent, who at the age of only 23 brought his first line of leather jackets to the catwalk with Chicago models. Not only the jacket, but with the 1962-63 collection he launched a whole collection of leather garments on the catwalk, and if his invention initially shocked the fashion world, other designers such as Dior, Gucci, Versace followed suit. This event ensured the entry of the leather jacket into high fashion.
