INSTEAD OF FLOWER POWER, DEBBIE DID LEATHERI once found a great Perfecto jacket at a secondhand store in California; it was really small, probably a child’s size. I loved it because most people were still wearing hippie-dresses to the floor back then, and we were much tougher with our straight-legged pants and narrow lapels – I guess you would have called our look Euro-mod. I used to hang around the New York Dolls, and they were definitely into those jackets. I remember having one that was black on the outside with red pleats in the back. Eventually, I started noticing lots of women in the music scene doing a “West Side Story” kind of tough-girl look with motorcycle jackets in different colors. My friend Stephen Sprouse did a cartoonlike version of the Perfecto, which I loved because it was almost to the knees. It’s cool that these jackets keep coming back – biker style is an American classic.
DEBBIE HARRYHave a look on T Magazine