Trace the annals of menswear history, and stories of daring bravery are often tightly interwoven with time-honored garments. This couldn’t be truer of the bomber (or flight) jacket, a military-turned-civilian essential with an impressive lineage that’s being faithfully recreated by southwest England’s Eastman Leather Clothing.
More than four decades into business, the British outfitter, founded by avid military memorabilia collector Gary Eastman, crafts an array of the most meticulously detailed, historically inspired leather bombers on the market, handsomely accented by vintage accessories, such as gloves and aviator sunglasses. Eastman’s near-obsessive quest to craft historically accurate, richly detailed leather jackets started with the Type A-2 flight jacket, which he calls “the quintessential US flight jacket.”
The timeless nature and legendary silhouette of the dashing garment, worn by the likes of style icon Steve McQueen as well as fighter and bomber pilots and officers, make it Eastman’s top seller. The most beautiful specimens are hand-painted with graphics echoing iconic “nose art,” the decorative designs found on wartime aircraft fuselages denoting kill counts or honoring hometown sweethearts. “From archive wartime images and news reels to Hollywood movies for decades after, the Type A-2 is there,” Eastman tells us.
Following a brief stint in Florida running a fine English china and glass shop, Eastman’s return to England in the mid-1980s—and a deep interest in military history and vintage clothing—led him to start the business and learn to sew. On his own, he crafted hundreds of vintage-style leather jackets by hand. Eastman’s first employees joined the business in the late ’80s, with his mother and father eventually climbing aboard as partners. “We were the first company to do what one would call a serious recreation with utmost authenticity in mind,” Eastman says. “None of the materials were off the shelf.”
With a custom-made fabrication process and painstaking attention to detail, Eastman’s jackets soon surpassed anything turned out by the competition. “The product needed to look like an unissued original garment, basically,” Eastman explains. “This ethos was more and more refined as the years went by.” His laser-like focus on authentic quality quickly turned heads—and caught the attention of Hollywood costume designers. Eastman jackets graced the big screen in the 1998 war epic Pearl Harbor, along with Apple TV’s visually spectacular WWII aviation series Masters of the Air, which involved supplying hundreds of jackets plus supporting accessories like T-shirts and original wartime oxygen masks.
It’s a head-to-toe approach that serves the film and television industry in untold ways; creating similar recreations at a large scale would prove virtually impossible for production companies themselves, Eastman notes. It’s not merely about high-flying entertainment value, though: Eastman leather jackets boast remarkably precise details, richly crafted heirloom construction, and sturdy hardware. Accordingly, Eastman’s historically minded jackets often cost well into the four figures. A deep sense of respect for the past and the real-world origins of its vintage-inspired jackets charts the course.
“These jackets were originally made for exceptional times and worn by exceptional people, and that, in my opinion, should never be forgotten,” Eastman declares. The company’s Elite Units collection in particular pays homage to specific jackets sported by military legends, like a 1940s Flying Type A-2 Jacket worn by the “Hell’s Angels” (the 303rd Bombardment Group). And never far from Eastman’s mind are the “longevity, quality, history and range” of the company, core tenets of the business.
