Dropping Knowledge: The Schott Perfecto Motorcycle Jacket
When it comes to pure tough mother American style, no one ever did it better than Marlon Brando in the 1953 biker flick The Wild One. With those beat-up blue jeans, perfect crew neck tee, captain’s cap (it works, trust us), blood red motorcycle, and signature sneer, Brando had rebel style dialed in. But truth be told, Johnny Strabler’s getup would have just been okay, were it not for the character’s Schott Perfecto motorcycle jacket. With “Johnny” scrawled in white paint over his heart, stars on each of the epaulettes, and the belt fastened around his waist, Brando and his Perfecto rode across the screen and into the history books as the archetype for America’s untamed youth. While it was Brando who helped immortalize the Perfecto, by the time he donned his in the film the jacket already had a big screen worthy story of its own.
