The rise and rise of the criminally cool bomber jacket
One style, fits all
You can't go wrong with a bomber jacket.
And unlike every other main character silhouette being marketed as the next must-have hang in your wardrobe, the classic bomber, truly is, one-style-fits-all.
Now this one's a classic in its truest sense. Originally categorised as 'flight jackets' in 1917 by the US Army Aviation Clothing Board, it only took a couple of years for the chic silhouette's fashion-forwardness to surpass its utilitarian birth story. Originally created to keep pilots warm in the open-air cockpits, the flight jacket's sartorial arc of evolution developed right along side its utility.
Between World War I and World War II, US fighter planes too underwent significant shifts in their build, becoming closed and narrower — US Army Type A-1was created in 1927. With its knit waistband and cuffs, the A-1 level-up on the design kept the warmth in also going on to become the foundational design which gave rise to a generation raised on the wintry pull of the bomber. The buttoned closure eventually gave way to the zipper with the A-2 update, the following B-15 and MA-1 alterations upping the heat-sealing technology.
The bomber jacket's spill from uniformed rizz onto a statement piece for one and all was actually quite seamless, though the Hollywood-isation of it definitely helped a ton. Humphrey Bogart in Tokyo Joe (1949), Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause (1955) definitely set the ball rolling on this in paradigmatic ways.
That being said, nothing will likely ever compare to the boom of the bomber credited to Tom Cruise making it his near-permanent plus-one for Top Gun (1986).
Fast-forward to present times and it's one of those pieces that has an effortless yet instantly uplifting aura to any number of OOTD combinations you can come up with, not to mention the very evident takeover of the bomber narrative by feminine dressing.
Typically oversized with exaggerated arm space and cuffed wrists and ribs, it's the perfect top half to any basic or eccentric fit one can come up with. Pants, jeans, skirts, slacks, denim, silk, georgette, mixed metals — the bomber jacket essentially serves as a neutralising factor in an outfit curation, making any whack-number of combinations make sense.
Time travelling back to the present, brown has come through as quite the frontrunner when it comes to aesthetic updates, as has a suede texture. That being said the sheen of a classic leather cut (faux preferred) Deeper hues like cherry brown and chocolate carry vintage edge.
Ready for a bomb Fall?
