Ibought my first leather jacket at a vintage fair in an old English cathedral. I was 19 and a middle-aged British lady told me I looked good in it. Clearly a sales technique, but it worked, and I shelled out my grocery money for it. I had grand plans of fixing up my Dad’s old Honda the following semester and riding around campus in a sick jacket . For various reasons, that didn’t end up happening, and I ended up on a 50cc Yamaha Zuma, a fun little scooter, but one where a creaky moto jacket looked more like a comic prop than something out of a Dennis Hopper film. C’est la vie; we all look a little ridiculous in our 20s.

Despite what cinema tells you, you don’t need to ride a motorcycle to wear a leather jacket. Or fly a WWII-era fighter plane. Or be Steve McQueen photographed for E

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