SunshineKid
New in Town
- Messages
- 4
It began during the Davy Crockett craze in the 1950s when they bought me a coonskin cap and my first leather jacket: either some sort of cheap suede or maybe real buckskin. Skin, made into leather— and our ancestors wore animal skins over their skins in order to survive the Pleistocene's rugged weather a hundred thousand years ago. It's a primeval kind of thing. When I was four years old, I must have somehow recognized that. My mom told me that I wore that dirty cap to bed. When I was awake, I didn't want to take off that jacket.
I had no idea that I'd begun a lifelong quest. I don't remember my second leather jacket. Or maybe the third. But one of those early jackets was some sort of biker jacket: black leather and badass, and who knows why my parents let a twelve year old kid sport such a thing? I paid for it out of money saved from mowing lawns and shovelling snow. It was dear to me. When I put it on, I felt like a god.
I never outgrew it. One day, out in the dried marsh grass of South Jersey, my friends and I were playing firemen, lighting fires and putting them out. One of those fires got out of control. Coughing like crazy from the smoke, getting burned, I used that jacket to beat like a wild man at the flames. The fire destroyed a few acres. It also destroyed my jacket. I was devastated.
I don't know how many jackets I bought in the years after that: suede and smooth, brown and black, fashion and functional. I don't know what happened to most of them in the course of many moves across America and many decades. (One I just recently gave to my daughter for Christmas.) I still keep a few: an oversized Schott cafe racer that hangs loosely on me when I don't have a huge sweater underneath; an oversized Avirex bomber that looks like it's been through a war; a fashion lambskin jacket that I rarely wear but still like a good deal; a Thedi Phoenix that might have been nearly perfect except for the odd fit in several places and the discomfort of the padded shoulders and elbows. And the chafing in the armpits: Theodoros Pampoukas isn't too compromising when it comes to how he thinks his jackets should fit, and that fit pretty much demands high armholes that don't quite work for me.
And so one cold winter day, I contacted David Himel, founder of Himel Bros Leathers. I told him what I was looking for and something of my quest. A short while later, he called me. We had a long conversation—and not just about leather jackets, though David's knowledge about leather and haberdashery in general is practically encyclopaedic. In fact, he knows so much about so much that he's practically a polymath along with being a very engaging raconteur who loves telling stories. I don't know how long our first conversation lasted. After, we exchanged numerous texts: photos of leathers and jackets I liked; photos of leathers available; discussions as to the merits Shinki pigment vs. aniline and horsehide vs. goat—that sort of thing. It took me a while to decide on the Shinki drum-dyed oil finish: double black, as David calls it. I'd known for years that I wanted a cafe racer, and Himel's racer is called the Kensington, named after the neighborhood in Toronto where David's people lived.
Then came the hard part. (And no, I don't mean pressing the various buttons on my computer that led to lots of money vanishing from my account and appearing in David's. I'd prepared and saved for the moment.) It's not a simple thing to make a jacket for someone long distance. I went to a tailor, who took measurements. I mailed David pictures of me wearing various jackets, especially my Thedi Phoenix. I told him what I liked and didn't like about it. Then I mailed the Phoenix to him so that he could measure it in person and make adjustments for the Kensington.
During this phase, lasting six weeks or so, I worked mainly with David's assistant of many years, Reilly. She was incredibly polite, professional, and patient, even when I asked what probably seemed to her some pretty dumb questions. Reilly, in concert with David and Himel's great seamstress, May, decided that they needed to make and mail me a fit jacket out of cloth. I don't know if Himel does this for everyone or needs to, but in my case it was necessary because I have a hard-to-fit body: a big drop between chest and waist and a double curvature of the spine, which results in my being round-shouldered. The fit jacket arrived. I tried it on and took pictures. Then May went to work on the last of Himel's store of double black Shinki (there was a shortage at that time.)
I know that others in the Fedora Lounge have posted pictures of Himel jackets with a few irregular stiches and have complained bitterly about the workmanship of Himel jackets, especially in relation to that of perfectly sewn Freewheelers or Rainbow Country jackets. I can't speak knowledgeably about Japanese jackets, as I've never even met one in person. I never considered trying one on, as Japanese bodies are very different from mine, and I doubt that any jacket in Japan, off the rack, would fit me. I can say a good bit about my Kensington.
When the finished jacket arrived—81 days from my the initial phone call with David to delivery—I was blown away. I thought the jacket was beautiful; I guess I sort of fell in love. Despite my better judgement, prompted by the aforementioned reviews in FL, I got out my glasses to examine my new jacket's seams. Maybe others with a better eye than mine would disagree, but I couldn't find a stitch out of place or a flaw in construction. I was almost disappointed. I want to say why.
To me, now, after having worn the jacket a good bit, those who complain and cavil about a couple of crooked stitches seem to me . . . silly. It's like you've been searching for a bride for a long time, and then you finally meet a beautiful woman, the woman of your dreams. She's been made for you, just for you, and her rich and lustrous skin awaits your touch and longs to become one with yours. And then this amazing woman smiles at you as no one ever has. And where your world should light up and you should glory in the totality of this beautiful woman, you observe that a couple of her teeth are crooked. And you say, "I've been let down, you're not perfect, even though you might be perfect for me."
There's something else. The Japanese (this is ironic) have long built into their aesthetics and philosophy the idea of wabi-sabi: the imperfection of things that reveals a deeper beauty. Japanese potters purposefully place flaws in their tea cups, and they would probably laugh at a perfectly sewn Freewheelers jacket. It's the same sort of thing with Native American jewelers: they prize most highly not pure blue turquoise but stones with a black spiderweb matrix or gold or silver-like pyrite "flaws." And shouldn't this make sense to any leather jacket lover? What is an elbow crease but a breaking of a new jacket's perfection? Don't we all seek a well-broken-in jacket whose patina—every fade, wrinkle, and nick—bespeaks our experience with our jacket and identifies it as uniquely our own?
If it's not already clear, I really love this jacket. How much? I've considered moving to San Diego or some other place more temperate than Colorado just so I could wear the jacket more or less year round. Kind of crazy, yes? But aren't all of us leather jacket lovers just a little crazy?
I want to end this by mentioning what I think is the deeper reason why so many of us are in love with leather jackets, the living, beating heart of my long quest: the cool. Cloth jackets do a better job of almost anything from protecting against cold and rain, at a fraction of the price, with greater comfort; even for those who ride, an armored cloth jacket will provide better protection from a spill than even the toughest horsehide. True, such jackets don't feel as good to the hand, and they don't smell as good. And, above all, they're not as cool. In Joel Dinerstein's great book The Origins of Cool in Postwar America, Dinerstein tries to give a sense of what cool is and to define it: Maintaining dignity against oppressive authority. A public mode of covert resistance. Grace under pressure—a sort of relaxed intensity. Being authentic. Perhaps above all, historically, an expression of faith in the integrity and agency of the individual in the face of depression, war, occupation, segregation, and the threat of nuclear annihilation.
Leather jackets are cool. And the Himel Kensington is the coolest of the cool. But you can't buy cool, no matter how many jackets you own or how much money you shell out. What you can do, though, is to deck yourself out in a jacket so well made and right for you that you feel like a deeper and more real version of yourself when you're wearing it. For me, putting on my Kensington is a way of reminding myself to "be cool," as my black brothers used to say when I was a young man. That, of course, remains a lifelong quest even though my quest for the perfect jacket has ended. I don't mean to say, by the way, that I think my jacket is perfect. I'm not wild about the cotton drill lining (cotton sateen would make for an easier exit and entrance to this fitted jacket), and I suspect that I might have been happier with an extra half inch in both shoulders, as May initially suggested and I probably foolishly vetoed. But I love it, and it is beginning to love me, and I've better things to do with my life than endlessly buy more jackets. The mighty triumvirate of David, Reilly, and May has built me a very great jacket, and I am content at last.
I had no idea that I'd begun a lifelong quest. I don't remember my second leather jacket. Or maybe the third. But one of those early jackets was some sort of biker jacket: black leather and badass, and who knows why my parents let a twelve year old kid sport such a thing? I paid for it out of money saved from mowing lawns and shovelling snow. It was dear to me. When I put it on, I felt like a god.
I never outgrew it. One day, out in the dried marsh grass of South Jersey, my friends and I were playing firemen, lighting fires and putting them out. One of those fires got out of control. Coughing like crazy from the smoke, getting burned, I used that jacket to beat like a wild man at the flames. The fire destroyed a few acres. It also destroyed my jacket. I was devastated.
I don't know how many jackets I bought in the years after that: suede and smooth, brown and black, fashion and functional. I don't know what happened to most of them in the course of many moves across America and many decades. (One I just recently gave to my daughter for Christmas.) I still keep a few: an oversized Schott cafe racer that hangs loosely on me when I don't have a huge sweater underneath; an oversized Avirex bomber that looks like it's been through a war; a fashion lambskin jacket that I rarely wear but still like a good deal; a Thedi Phoenix that might have been nearly perfect except for the odd fit in several places and the discomfort of the padded shoulders and elbows. And the chafing in the armpits: Theodoros Pampoukas isn't too compromising when it comes to how he thinks his jackets should fit, and that fit pretty much demands high armholes that don't quite work for me.
And so one cold winter day, I contacted David Himel, founder of Himel Bros Leathers. I told him what I was looking for and something of my quest. A short while later, he called me. We had a long conversation—and not just about leather jackets, though David's knowledge about leather and haberdashery in general is practically encyclopaedic. In fact, he knows so much about so much that he's practically a polymath along with being a very engaging raconteur who loves telling stories. I don't know how long our first conversation lasted. After, we exchanged numerous texts: photos of leathers and jackets I liked; photos of leathers available; discussions as to the merits Shinki pigment vs. aniline and horsehide vs. goat—that sort of thing. It took me a while to decide on the Shinki drum-dyed oil finish: double black, as David calls it. I'd known for years that I wanted a cafe racer, and Himel's racer is called the Kensington, named after the neighborhood in Toronto where David's people lived.
Then came the hard part. (And no, I don't mean pressing the various buttons on my computer that led to lots of money vanishing from my account and appearing in David's. I'd prepared and saved for the moment.) It's not a simple thing to make a jacket for someone long distance. I went to a tailor, who took measurements. I mailed David pictures of me wearing various jackets, especially my Thedi Phoenix. I told him what I liked and didn't like about it. Then I mailed the Phoenix to him so that he could measure it in person and make adjustments for the Kensington.
During this phase, lasting six weeks or so, I worked mainly with David's assistant of many years, Reilly. She was incredibly polite, professional, and patient, even when I asked what probably seemed to her some pretty dumb questions. Reilly, in concert with David and Himel's great seamstress, May, decided that they needed to make and mail me a fit jacket out of cloth. I don't know if Himel does this for everyone or needs to, but in my case it was necessary because I have a hard-to-fit body: a big drop between chest and waist and a double curvature of the spine, which results in my being round-shouldered. The fit jacket arrived. I tried it on and took pictures. Then May went to work on the last of Himel's store of double black Shinki (there was a shortage at that time.)
I know that others in the Fedora Lounge have posted pictures of Himel jackets with a few irregular stiches and have complained bitterly about the workmanship of Himel jackets, especially in relation to that of perfectly sewn Freewheelers or Rainbow Country jackets. I can't speak knowledgeably about Japanese jackets, as I've never even met one in person. I never considered trying one on, as Japanese bodies are very different from mine, and I doubt that any jacket in Japan, off the rack, would fit me. I can say a good bit about my Kensington.
When the finished jacket arrived—81 days from my the initial phone call with David to delivery—I was blown away. I thought the jacket was beautiful; I guess I sort of fell in love. Despite my better judgement, prompted by the aforementioned reviews in FL, I got out my glasses to examine my new jacket's seams. Maybe others with a better eye than mine would disagree, but I couldn't find a stitch out of place or a flaw in construction. I was almost disappointed. I want to say why.
To me, now, after having worn the jacket a good bit, those who complain and cavil about a couple of crooked stitches seem to me . . . silly. It's like you've been searching for a bride for a long time, and then you finally meet a beautiful woman, the woman of your dreams. She's been made for you, just for you, and her rich and lustrous skin awaits your touch and longs to become one with yours. And then this amazing woman smiles at you as no one ever has. And where your world should light up and you should glory in the totality of this beautiful woman, you observe that a couple of her teeth are crooked. And you say, "I've been let down, you're not perfect, even though you might be perfect for me."
There's something else. The Japanese (this is ironic) have long built into their aesthetics and philosophy the idea of wabi-sabi: the imperfection of things that reveals a deeper beauty. Japanese potters purposefully place flaws in their tea cups, and they would probably laugh at a perfectly sewn Freewheelers jacket. It's the same sort of thing with Native American jewelers: they prize most highly not pure blue turquoise but stones with a black spiderweb matrix or gold or silver-like pyrite "flaws." And shouldn't this make sense to any leather jacket lover? What is an elbow crease but a breaking of a new jacket's perfection? Don't we all seek a well-broken-in jacket whose patina—every fade, wrinkle, and nick—bespeaks our experience with our jacket and identifies it as uniquely our own?
If it's not already clear, I really love this jacket. How much? I've considered moving to San Diego or some other place more temperate than Colorado just so I could wear the jacket more or less year round. Kind of crazy, yes? But aren't all of us leather jacket lovers just a little crazy?
I want to end this by mentioning what I think is the deeper reason why so many of us are in love with leather jackets, the living, beating heart of my long quest: the cool. Cloth jackets do a better job of almost anything from protecting against cold and rain, at a fraction of the price, with greater comfort; even for those who ride, an armored cloth jacket will provide better protection from a spill than even the toughest horsehide. True, such jackets don't feel as good to the hand, and they don't smell as good. And, above all, they're not as cool. In Joel Dinerstein's great book The Origins of Cool in Postwar America, Dinerstein tries to give a sense of what cool is and to define it: Maintaining dignity against oppressive authority. A public mode of covert resistance. Grace under pressure—a sort of relaxed intensity. Being authentic. Perhaps above all, historically, an expression of faith in the integrity and agency of the individual in the face of depression, war, occupation, segregation, and the threat of nuclear annihilation.
Leather jackets are cool. And the Himel Kensington is the coolest of the cool. But you can't buy cool, no matter how many jackets you own or how much money you shell out. What you can do, though, is to deck yourself out in a jacket so well made and right for you that you feel like a deeper and more real version of yourself when you're wearing it. For me, putting on my Kensington is a way of reminding myself to "be cool," as my black brothers used to say when I was a young man. That, of course, remains a lifelong quest even though my quest for the perfect jacket has ended. I don't mean to say, by the way, that I think my jacket is perfect. I'm not wild about the cotton drill lining (cotton sateen would make for an easier exit and entrance to this fitted jacket), and I suspect that I might have been happier with an extra half inch in both shoulders, as May initially suggested and I probably foolishly vetoed. But I love it, and it is beginning to love me, and I've better things to do with my life than endlessly buy more jackets. The mighty triumvirate of David, Reilly, and May has built me a very great jacket, and I am content at last.
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