As every year also during this spring the climate loves to change! You go from hot mornings to cool evenings and this could destabilize the choice of your outfits. However, if we look on the bright side, it is the perfect time to pull out of the closet (or buy) a timeless must-have outerwear: the biker jacket.

The first model of the leather jacket dates back to more than a century ago, when it was known as flying jacket because it was worn only by aviators.

This item of clothing began to gain popularity when, in 1928, the brothers Irving and Jack Schott began to manufacture leather by hand in a small shop on the Lower East Side of New York.

They created the iconic Perfecto model, commissioned by a motorcyclist and designed to protect against rain and wind. Its main feature was a comfortable metal diagonal hinge.

Having been designed specifically for motorcyclists, the Perfecto jacket, in its classical meaning, in addition to being strictly made of black leather, has some practical elements such as:

Massive presence of zip and buckles;
Snap fasteners under the collar to avoid shaking once a certain speed in motion is reached;
Front zipper slightly displaced on the side;
Anti-wind and anti-rain flap under this same zipper.

Later on, the world of cinema, music and, finally, fashion will make this kind of leather jacket iconic.

Between the leading actors we must mention Marlon Brando in The Wild One (1953), James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Jack Nicholson in Hells Angels on Wheels (1967).

The model worn by Marlon Brando was a Perfecto 618, produced by the Schott brothers, which perfectly embodied the rebellious style of the indomitable biker he interpreted. This type of leather jacket has become, over the years, a symbol of revolt and protest, so much to have even been banned in some colleges in the USA.

In the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s its popularity increased even more thanks to stars like Elvis Presley, Bruce Springsteen, Fonzie and many others who used it both on stage and in their private lives. Only in Paris in the 1980s, the Schott brothers sold more than 30.000 garments.

Until 1978, it was an exclusively male garment but, thanks to the cinema, and particularly thanks to the film Grease, in which Olivia Newton John wears it in the final scene, it also became a female accessory. Usually, in that period, it was used by women combined with the miniskirt.

Its debut on the catwalk comes due to a young Yves Saint Laurent who for the first time proposes it at the Haute Couture fashion shows, when he was still the artistic director of Dior. This type of jacket is a bold idea for Parisian fashion, a provocation that initially was not well received by the fans of the Maison but that later became the emblem of the subversive and ingenious fashion of Saint Laurent, so much that other great brands such as Chanel, Moschino and Versace followed him in his choice.

In this way the biker jacket has become a symbol for youth subcultures: crossing eras and temporary fashions and passing between bikers, greasers, punks and metalheads. Each one of these subcultures customized the original model, adding to it studs, pins, lettering and all kinds of decoration.

Once it officially became part of the fashion world, it has been revisited in every way and its essence has been twisted. Some designers have removed the main elements that characterized it, replacing the diagonal zip with a more classic vertical, changing the material that once was strictly leather with other ones more delicate such as suede, distorting even the initial cut with a more classic tailoring, similar to blazer one.

Today we can find outerwear inspired by the biker jacket of every kind of material, fabric, length and shape. There is also a variety of colors, as well as patterns, embroidery and decorations, but all have as a starting point the original model born more than a century ago and this is what makes it a timeless classic, because it has influenced and continues to influence the generations to come still managing to be, somehow, fashionable.

We offer a selection of men’s and women’s jackets, all available on the Shopenauer website, to make your spring and summer outfits truly impeccable.