At the turn of the 20th century, the advent of vehicular transportation would mark the experience of the independent American spirit as the United States entered a new era of mobility. The first cars and motorcycles emerged at the beginning of the 1900’s and quickly multiplied in number as manufacture improved and as Americans came to embrace the freedom of motorized travel. What arose in tandem with developments in machinery, particularly in the case of motorcycles, was a fashion that underlined the industry behind the vehicle and promised a sense of the adventurous future that lay ahead.

The late 1800’s saw the incremental adjustments to the bicycle form that eventually led to the motorized cycle, produced by several different companies in the 1910’s and 20’s, with its singular mechanisms and engine development. In the late 1920’s a company from New York City produced a jacket inspired by the motorcycle’s popularity and that would become identified ever after with the motorcycle lifestyle. The leather motorcycle jacket, called the Perfecto by the New York company, was reminiscent of a military jacket with a short cut and a form that narrowed toward the waist but was offset in its serious tone by the zipper closure at the front and the zipper breast pocket.

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The style quickly became associated with the motorcycle and after World War II became a staple of a lifestyle that not only told a story of adventure and rugged independence but also of comradery among those who sought this freedom of the road. Later, not surprisingly, it would be taken up as an emblem of independence by the young generations in the dawning age of rock and roll and teenage rebellion. *image: BMW R32 at 2006 MOA international rally *image: clip from The Wild One with Marlon Brando

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