The Jacket on the Screen: Movie Stars and the Clothes That Stayed
The Jacket on the Screen: Movie Stars and the Clothes That Stayed
Brando, Dean, and McQueen made a few pieces of clothing immortal. The men wearing ours now are writing the next chapter.
1951 to 1955
In 1951 Marlon Brando wore a tight white T-shirt in A Streetcar Named Desire, and an undershirt became something a man could wear on its own. Two years later, in The Wild One, he rode in a black leather motorcycle jacket, jeans, and boots. The look has outlived the film by more than seventy years.
In 1955 James Dean wore a red jacket, a white T-shirt, and blue jeans in Rebel Without a Cause. He died that September, a month before the film opened. The clothes became his monument.
1963
In The Great Escape, Steve McQueen made the motorcycle a movie star. The famous jump over the wire was ridden by his friend Bud Ekins, a champion rider. McQueen was a serious rider himself, and the film made the bike, the boots, and the plain clothes of the man on it into something every boy wanted.
The Men Who Wear Ours
Film still carries clothes into the culture. Robert Patrick, the T-1000 of Terminator 2, is a rider, and in August 2026 he was inducted into the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum Hall of Fame. He wears our Rough-RIDER.
Jefferson White, who plays Jimmy on Yellowstone, is photographed on our site in the Rough-RIDER in black charcoal. Noah Le Gros wears it. So do Zach Bryan and Joe Rogan. Nick Zano wore our peacoat to the premiere of his Netflix series Obliterated.
The Rough-RIDER and the Westerns
The Rough-RIDER is a horsehide over-shirt, the shape many people call a commander jacket: shoulder yokes, a snap front, a plain cuff, and a hem at the belt. It is roughout leather, also written rough out and rough-out, with the finished side turned in, so it needs no lining. The horsehide is tanned by Horween for Black Bear Brand. It closes with our own YKK snaps, and it is designed and made in the USA.
Our western jackets hang beside it. The BLACK Western Horween Horsehide Jacket is heavy Horween horsehide, 3oz and up, black over a natural back that shows warm brown tones with wear. It is lined in our green Cupra, closes with our YKK snaps, has a concealed pocket at the left waist, and is made in the USA. Our leather jackets open for preorder only three or four times a year.
The screen made these clothes famous. The men who wear them keep them alive.
A Way Of Life.
Shop the Story
BLACK Western Horween Horsehide Jacket
Related Reading
Denim and the Motorcycle: Why Riders Have Always Worn Blue
The Pearl Snap Shirt: How a Cowboy Detail Became an American Icon