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by Eugene Rabkin
"I have a beautiful Undercover perfecto jacket in my closet. It’s made from silky jet-black lambskin and lined in tartan. The genius of its design is the doubling up of every pocket that a usual perfecto has. It’s a great example of Jun Takahashi’s thoughtful quirkiness. I love it, and I almost never wear it. Every time I pull it out of my closet and put it on, I take a quick look in the mirror and hang it back.
Why am I put off? Because today a perfecto jacket has become a staple of the fuccboi uniform, and I don’t want to be associated with that lowest common denominator of male fashion. Partly it’s vanity, but it’s also more than that. Given the rest of my closet, I am probably in little danger of some bro coming up to me at the Saturday Surf’s coffee line and saying that my jacket is “lit,” but at the end of the day I dress for myself first and foremost, and for me garments carry meaning, and the meaning of the perfecto has changed.
The perfecto, also called a motorcycle jacket or a rider’s jacket, is a prime example of how context changes that meaning. The original Perfecto was designed in 1928 by Irving Schott and named after his favorite cigar (Schott still holds the pattern for the jacket’s name). The motorcycle was beginning to gain ground as a mode of transportation and as a sport, and like horseback riding and other activities required special clothing that was durable and protective. At the same time a fairly new invention was gaining ground – the zipper. Schott produced the first zippered jacket for riding a motorcycle – it made sense to have a garment that could be opened and closed quickly. He placed the zipper asymmetrically, so it would not cut into a body bent over a motorcycle."
Full article on sz-mag
"I have a beautiful Undercover perfecto jacket in my closet. It’s made from silky jet-black lambskin and lined in tartan. The genius of its design is the doubling up of every pocket that a usual perfecto has. It’s a great example of Jun Takahashi’s thoughtful quirkiness. I love it, and I almost never wear it. Every time I pull it out of my closet and put it on, I take a quick look in the mirror and hang it back.
Why am I put off? Because today a perfecto jacket has become a staple of the fuccboi uniform, and I don’t want to be associated with that lowest common denominator of male fashion. Partly it’s vanity, but it’s also more than that. Given the rest of my closet, I am probably in little danger of some bro coming up to me at the Saturday Surf’s coffee line and saying that my jacket is “lit,” but at the end of the day I dress for myself first and foremost, and for me garments carry meaning, and the meaning of the perfecto has changed.
The perfecto, also called a motorcycle jacket or a rider’s jacket, is a prime example of how context changes that meaning. The original Perfecto was designed in 1928 by Irving Schott and named after his favorite cigar (Schott still holds the pattern for the jacket’s name). The motorcycle was beginning to gain ground as a mode of transportation and as a sport, and like horseback riding and other activities required special clothing that was durable and protective. At the same time a fairly new invention was gaining ground – the zipper. Schott produced the first zippered jacket for riding a motorcycle – it made sense to have a garment that could be opened and closed quickly. He placed the zipper asymmetrically, so it would not cut into a body bent over a motorcycle."
Full article on sz-mag
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