Edward
Bartender
- Messages
- 25,111
- Location
- London, UK
I’m keeping the standard HWM collar. It’s grown on me. While I love the premier collar I fear that trying to put that on a jacket it wasn’t intended for will result in the collar not fitting the jacket quite right...coming out too small or having a negative impact on the neck diameter. Sometimes less is more and I feel like this next one is addition by subtraction.
Best decision. The Standard Highwayman - Aero's first civilian style (and still their single biggest seller - impressive, given that next year I believe marks its fortieth anniversary) - was based on an original 1959 Highwayman jacket made under that house-brand for Rivett's of Leytonstone. That first jacket Ken made not as a direct reproduction (the accurate repro arrived in recent years as the Original 59er, a real ton-up style; Highwayman back in the day were doing those from at least 1958, while Lewis didn't introduce their own Corsair / Dominator models until 1962), but instead was 'Americanised' in style, basically a looser fit. This was in line with discussions with the original customer, and retro-fashion at the time. Around 82/83, there was a significant rock and roll / rockabilly revival movement, very much themed around Americana rather than the British experience of the fifties (which was markedly more drab and austere).
Anyroad, the Premier Fit Highwayman is not a fifties jacket like it's bretheren. Its design inspiration instead came from another angle. The short of it is that there was clearly a market for a plainer jacket of the Highwayman style, but with a neater fit akin to the jackets of the interwar period. The Premier model is, in effect, Ken's reimagining of what the Highwayman would have looked like had it been produced twenty years earlier. That being the case, I personally lean to the view that the collar styles are from two different eras as are the jacket styles; I don't think they would mix together quite as well as the standard approaches.