Show Me Your Jacket Accoutrements

[Stand By]

Sorry to hear about your Pal 'Stand By', the loss of a hound is a very hard thing. They walk with us for such a short time.

Thanks very much, BN. Yep, losing a companion is tough … but having all the others helps this time.
I thought we'd lost Star a year ago for sure, but at the last moment she rallied and bounced right back and then I got another full year out of her - which was a big bonus and as some friends said, a year is a long time in the life of a dog. And that's true.

 

[Stand By]

I have an idea for your next jacket. How about getting that shot painted? A nice nod to this:
View attachment 18571
View attachment 18572
"Snack Time"

Alas, my girlfriend has vetoed any more pin-up art - I have done two (on my old A2 and my ELC C-3) and I'd love to do one more (and Sack Time is a great example), but it ain't worth the flak.

PS. Just re-read your reply - you said Snack Time ! That's funny !!!

 

[nick123]

Alas, my girlfriend has vetoed any more pin-up art - I have done two (on my old A2 and my ELC C-3) and I'd love to do one more (and Sack Time is a great example), but it ain't worth the flak.

PS. Just re-read your reply - you said Snack Time ! That's funny !!!

I can just picture a cartoon of that photograph painted on an A-2. Big 'ol "Snack Time" lettering, same font as "Sack Time"... Classic!

 

[Stand By]

Do a pastiche of that image but with a 1940's Gil Elvgren type lady in a 1950's kitchen - but with our dogs and "Snack Time" in the same font ! Oh, that'd be a hoot ! LOL !

 

[nick123]

Do a pastiche of that image but with a 1940's Gil Elvgren type lady in a 1950's kitchen - but with our dogs and "Snack Time" in the same font ! Oh, that'd be a hoot ! LOL !

I had to look up Gil Elvgren....all I can say is BINGO! Tell your girlfriend she looks like her and you're getting her painted on and she'll give you the green light for another jacket!

 

[IXL]

I had to look up Gil Elvgren....all I can say is BINGO! Tell your girlfriend she looks like her and you're getting her painted on and she'll give you the green light for another jacket!

So that works? Great! I'm going to tell my wife that Stand By's girlfriend looks like the Elvgren model and I'm getting her image painted on to the back, so my wife will let me get another jacket. Sweeet!!!!

 

[Stand By]

It's worth a shot …! My girlfriend chuckled when she saw "D-Mo Flak Magnet" and so it got a pass …! Whatever works.

 

[tropicalbob]

Back in '71, I hitchhiked from London to Edinburgh. At a roundabout near Doncaster my booth was invaded by a biker gang who'd been attracted by my Schott (I think) cafe racer and my engineer boots. Nice guys and really funny, but they were all wearing Perfecto-style jackets with tons of regalia. Is it more of a British thing?

 

[Edward]

Finally I added Star's old dog licences for the zip pullers - and her old ID tag and rabies vaccination tag (expired) is the main zip puller. Real dog tags !

Nice touch. Being cat people, we don't have much of that sort of thing (some of ours never would wear a collar), but I might well have some collar tags engraved up, I might well now have enougth jackets for all the cats I've lived with over the years. Sorry to hear of your loss, it's always tough to lose one. Hells, I still get cut up about our first; the old boy made it to almost thirteen (not ancient for a cat, but he was a hell of a scrapper in his day and, well... as a wise man once said, it's not the years, it's the mileage...); he's been gone twenty one years last April, but still sorely missed. Still, as a friend recnetly put it, they had a good, long life, they were loved, and now there's a home for somebody else who needs one... (Plus, looking to my brother, two cats are nowhere near the work of children!)

I had to look up Gil Elvgren....all I can say is BINGO! Tell your girlfriend she looks like her and you're getting her painted on and she'll give you the green light for another jacket!

Heh... I'm always tempted to have some art done superimposing my lady's likeness onto something like that...

Back in '71, I hitchhiked from London to Edinburgh. At a roundabout near Doncaster my booth was invaded by a biker gang who'd been attracted by my Schott (I think) cafe racer and my engineer boots. Nice guys and really funny, but they were all wearing Perfecto-style jackets with tons of regalia. Is it more of a British thing?

I think so. The US equivalent seemed to favour much less decorated jackets, unless they rode with an MC and had earned their colours. of course. The British Rocker scene that arose from about 1959 onwards, especially clustered around the London-based 59 Club and the Ace Cafe, went in for a lot more in the way of accoutrements. Now, the impression I get - those who were there can correct me if wrong - is that things weren't quite as extreme on that front as they later became (parallels, ironically, with the stereotypical mod in a long parka and with a scooter so covered in mirrors and headlamps that it's a wonder they didn't fall over forwards, which was only around very briefly in, if memory serves, for a few months in 67/68), but certainly moreso than they were in the US.

Of all the photos I've seen, there certainly were guys that took it this far in the 60s, moreso later on:

This is the sort of level you'll see at most of the revival meetings now, though there are plenty of original photos from 1959 onwards that show varying levels of customisation, typical examples seem to be these images:

This image was taken at the 59 Club in 1973, about typical for the time, I think (and around when you met the folks you recall):

What I don't know - someone else might be able to confirm - is whether they would ever back in the day have had "Rocker" on their back in two inch high letters? not sure I've ever seen that on original jackets - seems to be more a revivialist thing.

The "Perfecto" types you saw were as likely as not Lewis or oneof the many Lewis copyists (there seem to have been dozens of different British manufacturers of bike jackets back in the day - makes sense, of course, given there were, I think, many more bikes on the road then). Very popular were the Bronx and the Lightening:

Bronx

Notice the Bronx has a leather-covered buckle; these British kids liked to monkey crouch over the bike like a real racer, and an exposed buckle would scratch the paintwork.

Lightening

Of course Perfectos were also worn, though they were more likely to have been cheaper, UK-made copies than the real thing. The lancer front style came to dominate, I think, into the turn of the Seventies, but back at the peak of the Rocker thing, the centrezip style was as common - Lewis had a whoel bunch of variations, like the Dominator:

Again many other manufacturers came up with these too.... A lot of the jackets worn would have been cheaper options, some of them early variations on pleather. Lewis even made a plastic jacket of their own, called, if memory serves, the Bomber, and aimed at a much cheaper end of the market. Photos I've seen suggest the otulaw rocker look moved away from the centre-zip style in the early seventies, though they were popular with the punk crowd (prior to the infamously chaotic and short-lived US tour on which the Schott Perfecto for which he is now often rememebered was bought, Sid Vicious was best known for sporting a Lewis Dominator). Steve Jones preferred the Lightening, though - as did Joe Strummer. Joey Ramone, another punk remembered for Schotts had both a Bronx and a Lightening variant, and wore them both often around 77/78ish, if I recall correctly.

 

[Stand By]

Nice one, Edward - those are some very cool jackets ! Not my thing at all usually, but damn, they look fantastic !

Thanks for the kind words too. Cheers, mate.

 

[rocketeer]

I was on the bike/rock n roll scene during the late 70s and on through the 1980s but dont ever recall seeing a perfecto style jacket like Brando's. They kind of re-released The Wild One in the 1980s, I first saw it at the Scala, Kings Cross London around 1981, then that style of jacket was everywhere. No Horsehide jackets unless they were imported originals available from Flip and American Classics of course. Now of course that style and also the engineer boots, is dominant creating a kind of hybrid rocker with the younger set.
As you will see by pictures and film clips, there was no real uniform, bikers wearing a combination of leathers, wax jackets and sheepskins of varying quality. Some wore fishermans socks, others white silk scarves etc, some even rode Cafe racer style bikes, though most rode ordinary motorcycles. A few of the more well off may have had a Gold Star but that was a semi professional racers bike and very expensive.
Modern days we tend to pick out the best items and steryotype the look so that the typical rocker look is a Lancer jacket covered in pin badges, with high boots and fishermans socks, a white scarf and a Triton. Some, like my training officer during the 1970s was a 60s 'Rocker' He had the jacket with a tiger painted on the back and a few badges but could not afford the bike so him and his other biker mates were known to the coffee bar crowd as Bus stop Bikers.

 

[nick123]

The coolest looking rock n' rollers from the 60s in my book.
Monks (if you can believe it they were actually US Army guys stationed in Germany...imagine how well that was received).

Velvet Illusions:

I've yet to see any fashion from that decade that comes close, but I'm sure it's out there.

 

[Stand By]

And in stark contrast to all the recent jackets here with a plethora of badges, this is my ELC 1942 pattern Irvin - with its one pin. It's an RCAF Association pin that a pal of mine FOUND and he gave it to me - and it's really nice, so I put it on the belt in honour of the Canadians who served. It's secured with a very solid brass piece that screws on.

And the other acroutement is an original Acme Thunderer whistle on the collar. I found it in a militaria shop up in Orillia and it's very heavy by comparison to the ones I bought from ELC. Note that it doesn't have the AM marking on the side like the repro's.



And so I have two repro Acme Thunderer whistles that I just don't need - one is brass that used to be on my Irvin and has a little nice tarnishing and the other is nickel and mint. If anyone reading this would like one, they're both up for grabs. Just PM me and let me know which you'd like and I'll mail them out.

 

[rocketeer]

And in stark contrast to all the recent jackets here with a plethora of badges, this is my ELC 1942 pattern Irvin - with its one pin. It's an RCAF Association pin that a pal of mine FOUND and he gave it to me - and it's really nice, so I put it on the belt in honour of the Canadians who served. It's secured with a very solid brass piece that screws on.

And the other acroutement is an original Acme Thunderer whistle on the collar. I found it in a militaria shop up in Orillia and it's very heavy by comparison to the ones I bought from ELC. Note that it doesn't have the AM marking on the side like the repro's.

And so I have two repro Acme Thunderer whistles that I just don't need - one is brass that used to be on my Irvin and has a little nice tarnishing and the other is nickel and mint. If anyone reading this would like one, they're both up for grabs. Just PM me and let me know which you'd like and I'll mail them out.

Sometimes you can over decorate a jacket, I too only usually wear one badge on my bike jackets, be it BSA or Suzuki. The display jacket is purposely loaded with motorcycle speedway and other bike related pins. I may add some lettering as I bought some used studs(spots?) that were also typical of the era.

i like the whistles, but would probably never get used to them, I had an A2 with one on for about an hr, it kept hitting me on the chin after running for a train so it went in the drawer.......for ever.

 

[Stand By]

Brass Thunderer whistle taken.

 

[Stand By]

Nickel whistle taken.

 

[bn1966]

Got this old piece from France

 

[Edward]

Sometimes you can over decorate a jacket, I too only usually wear one badge on my bike jackets, be it BSA or Suzuki. The display jacket is purposely loaded with motorcycle speedway and other bike related pins. I may add some lettering as I bought some used studs(spots?) that were also typical of the era.

i like the whistles, but would probably never get used to them, I had an A2 with one on for about an hr, it kept hitting me on the chin after running for a train so it went in the drawer.......for ever.

Sounds like my cats when they first got their collars with bells.... for the first half an hour they went nuts trying to get at them....

 

[nick123]

Here it is!! Handpainted leather patch by our own SIGGY (Johnny). Really pleased with it. My favorite band.

Based off of the album (sorry no beautiful lady on the patch):

 

[dh66]

^^^Awesome!!^^^