Word: leathers
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...setting is sedate New Wave: dean, short hair cuts, collar-less button-down shirts, and some well-tailored leather jackets. Except for Psycho, no one is younger than 20 or so, and most pay for more attention to the watery mixed drinks than to Mission of Burma--one of Boston's better club bands, with a couple of well-received singles and an "extended-play mini-album" so its credit...
Chains and leather on scrawny sub-urban bodies that are hurling themselves into each other, imitating the latest West Coast trend in post-Sex Pistols pop shock. Slam dancing doesn't come off too well, however, when the participants are constantly looking around to make sure they're doing it correctly. Not all of them are. One kid yells, "Stop slam dancing! I know people who broke ribs slamming!" His left ear gleams with a diamond, and he is connected to a girl by a chain that runs from his leather collar to hers...
...show up as well. This is what is left of the Brookline-breed hippies, but many of them seem to have turned to the New Wave as a supplement to the usual staple of Dead, Doors, and heavy metal. They dress differently: army jackets and head bands, Levis, no leather--much greasier: In addition to Marlboros, some are smoking Djarum clove cigarettes. The know all about slam dancing from reading Boston Rocker, but they dance near the outskirts of the real action, noticeably intimidated by Psycho's crowd...
...Leather is expensive: a Lauren prairie skirt costs $1,000; a leather blazer from Yves St. Laurent also carries a $1,000 tag. But leather jackets with embroidered eagles, by Parisian Designer Claude Montana, priced at up to $2,400, sold out in two weeks last fall at Bloomingdale's in New York. Retailers report that the priciest items sell best. Alan Bilzerian, owner of two stores in Boston and Worcester, Mass., claims: "The customer wants one incredible piece. This will become a piece from the '80s, the way a Bauhaus or Corbusier was a piece from...
Indeed, a well-made leather garment will last ten to 15 years. It travels well and does not wrinkle easily. And leather seldom if ever has to be cleaned. Exults Arleen Sorkin, a Manhattan actress-model: "When I was wearing silk, the dry cleaner loved me. When I was wearing white cotton, the Chinese laundry loved me. Now I have a $300 chamois dress and, you know, it's hand washable. It's also great for cleaning records." Some leather buffs use an art gum eraser on stains, while others maintain that leather should be permitted, like...