Scarface vintage embroidered leather jacket
 
Just when I thought I had pretty much seen everything that had anything to do with the the 1983 film Scarface, this came across my radar—elaborately embroidered leather jackets with images and quotes from the film. ‘Da fuck?
 

 
This coat is adorned with famous quotes from the movie such as “Say hello to my little friend” (because it wouldn’t be a proper homage to Scarface without those five words) and “World is your” (minus the word “the”) and other memorable phrases. There are also images of Tony Montana’s mean mug sucking on a fat cigar and clutching his modified Colt AR-15 sewn into the jacket only a true Scarface fanatic would wear. A few of these sweet and strange homages were made to mark the 20th anniversary of the film back in 2003, then it appears they were knocked off in a further effort to cash in on the film and character immortalized by Al Pacino 32 years ago.

There are a few different variants of this bizarre piece of outerwear for sale on eBay that, just like the world, could be yours for anywhere from $50 to the delusional sum of $500. Loads of images for you cockroaches to gawk at follow.
 

 

 
More Montana after the jump…

 
When a chubby Marlon Brando roared into town on a motorbike in The Wild One he popularized the black leather jacket as a fashionable symbol of rebellion. Leather jackets may have been worn by bikers for protection, but they were quickly adopted by rock musicians (from Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent, The Beatles to Elvis) as an endorsement of their outsider status.

While fashions changed in the 1960s to soft denim and psychedelic colors, the black leather jacket never lost its iconic status as edgy, radical and subversive. The black leather jacket of the revolutionary students in Paris in 1968, became the fashionable uniform of the chaotic Baader-Meinhof, before returning to its spiritual home in the form of the matching outfits of proto-punk rockers The Ramones.

Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee and Tommy made the black leather jacket de rigueur for punks, and soon became the latest fashion sold by a canny Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren in their London boutique SEX. 

Teenagers across the UK bought cheap black leather or faux leather jackets and decorated them with the names of their favorite bands, political slogans, or mini manifestoes written in White Out, paint, or nail polish. There was a naif art to such DIY accessorizing, a uniqueness that encapsulated the essence of punk (its ability to offend) and the character of the jacket’s owner.

This small selection of photographs captures some of the early DIY punk leather jackets from the mid-1970s to the later more fashion conscious dress code of the 1980s and 1990s. Nowadays a punk leather jacket with studs and badges will set you back $200 on eBay.
 

 

 

 
More black leather jackets, after the jump…