Vice Style

The author, left, with Derek Harris of Lewis Leathers.

By 1954, rock ’n’ roll had begun to flourish in Europe, evolving with its own eccentricities. From 1959 onwards, Hamburg, Brussels, Paris and London and many other towns and cities had become lucrative stopovers on the road for the first wave of American rockers. European kids were getting their first exposure to explosive performances by Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard and Eddie Cochran. Other US heroes like Gene Vincent had actually moved to Britain. Back home in America, times were getting hard for these wilder rockers, who found it hard to compromise by watering down their shows and looks for the mass market.

At the dawn of the 60s, kids in Europe were discovering the liberating power of rock ’n’ roll in ever bigger numbers. The wilder it was, the greater its power to transcend the everyday boredom of the bombed-out landscapes they lived in. As the scene grew, and a new teenage fashion blossomed, the leather look of “the greaser” or “the rocker” was the style that horrified squares of all ages, conjuring images of sex, gangs, switchblades and motorcycles.

By 1960, the biker look, also known as the “ton-up boy” and “café racer”, was beginning to cross over to street and stage wear. In Hamburg, the Beatles would often take the stage wearing leather jeans and jackets, looking like a tough biker gang. The garb had become shorthand for the dangerous, risk-taking outsider, whose motto was “Too fast to live, too young to die.” It was a look that appalled parents, but one that has echoed down the years, adopted by everyone from the Libertines to the Ramones and the Sex Pistols. Just check out Johnny Rotten in the video for “God Save the Queen” in 1977—he wears leather jeans as well as a pair of motorbike boots made by Lewis Leathers.

Now, this venerable British brand has been making leather motorcycle gear since the 1920s. I caught up with the current custodian, Derek Harris, at the Lewis Leathers shop, which is tucked off Tottenham Court Road in central London. Derek knows a fair bit about the entwined history of rock ’n’ roll and the leather jacket in Britain.