Dust. Speed. Bad decisions and good stories.
I dragged an old Leathertogs jacket out of the dark and stared at it too long. Long enough to start hearing things. Long enough to wonder what deserved saving and what deserved leaving behind.
So we built it again.
Wild horsehide. Custom-made with Horween. Heavy enough to feel permanent. Vintage Talon zippers reborn. Brass studs poured just for this thing. Every detail argued over. Every line questioned.
Some of the old jacket survived the journey.
Some of it didn't.
That's the job.
Creative Director, adventurer, and designer Josh Sirlin takes viewers deep into the Black Bear Brand Leathertogs jacket, sharing the story behind the resurrection of a rare 1930s American motorcycle jacket. Close-up cinematic footage reveals the rich custom Horween horsehide leather, vintage-inspired Talon zippers, custom-poured brass studs, and carefully considered construction details. Josh handles the jacket, pointing out elements preserved from the original 1933 design and explaining the choices made to adapt it for modern wear. The video moves between intimate details of the materials and Josh's firsthand insights into the history, craftsmanship, and relentless pursuit of authenticity behind bringing the Leathertogs back to life.
dive into the Boro Lounge Suit collection in a cinematic video filled with rare Japanese craftsmanship, indigo boro textiles, vintage-inspired tailoring, and obsessive handmade details. Close-up shots reveal layered patchwork, sashiko stitching, worn textures, and the soul of traditional Japanese repair culture transformed into luxury fashion. Josh speaks about the history of boro, the making of the collection in Japan, and the long process behind every garment. Raw Americana collides with old-world Japan in a dreamlike film full of texture, movement, craftsmanship, and timeless style.
join me for a little deeper look into the new Black Bear Brand Ivory Roughout Chore Coat, a glimpse into the why, some fun details and...
the leather, design elements, the feeling of it all.
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close-up shots reveal the wild texture of the Horween roughout leather, soft ivory nap, hardware, stitching, pockets, cuffs, and up close of the hide.
rugged, luxury, lived-in. Americana atmosphere, motorcycles, open road energy, details, and cinematic imagery surround the piece as Josh shares a deeper glimpse into the inspiration behind the coat and the feeling it was built to carry.
the Pacific chewing at itself below me.
the coast twisting like a hallucination.
I keep riding cause stopping means waking up.
the RoughOut Chore Coat... something between a dream and a roadside accident.
the roughout chores.
dust drunk. half holy.
his & her against the whole collapsing circus.
snow caps twitching out west like dead prophets.
the highway peeling open behind us.
legs locked around me.
I can feel her smile before I feel my own thoughts.
a beautiful hallucination chewing through god and chrome.
riding straight into it.
NYC drifting somewhere between a dream and 1969
Velvet Underground echoing through the walls like a ghost refusing death.
then her.
rose corduroy. lavender pearl snaps. fur vest.
Black Bear Brand WOMAN.
not walking. floating.
like the city imagined something too beautiful to keep.
- josh
Ten years evaporated. Road blur. Loom thunder.
Coast, mountains, wrong turns that stuck.
Indigo in the skin. Won’t wash out.
Machines barking. Men steady. No talk.
I went in for fabric. Came out… different.
Black Bear Brand. The jeans.
Not clean. Not neat. Earned.
You feel it. Or it leaves you.
Nine years. Maybe more. Hard to say when you’re inside it.
My LEATHERTOGS, commandeered. Not borrowed. Took it.
A ghost from before the war. Perfect. Untouchable.
Cut. Stripped. Kept what hit. Cut what didn’t. No sentiment. No brakes.
Instinct and bad decisions that turned out right.
Brass. Poured like it mattered. Talon zippers. Old blood. Still biting.
Horween leather… years of fighting that hide until it broke my way.
Thing in my head. Louder than anything else.
Now it’s here.
1933. Pre-war. Mine.
I commandeered the LEATHERTOGS TM nearly 9 years ago… and here we finally are with the first tribute to the pre-war KING of moto leather jackets… Leathertogs!
This is my design… I’ve taken what I love from the original and cut away anything I didn't want/need! No stops, no fucks given to what it would take to get exactly what I wanted, from custom hand poured brass studs to custom vintage Talon Zippers and the leather that has taken a wild fucking amount of time to fine tune with Horween! Here’s my Leathertogs 1933 pre-war moto jacket!
- joshj
It began with a slab of rescued timber and a man who refuses shortcuts.
John Dill took a tree meant to disappear and gave it time, discipline, and purpose. What emerged was not just a table, but a foundation. A single, living surface where Black Bear Brand found its weight, its voice, and its beginning.
The Peninsula Tokyo. First stop. Always. The car door opens. Quiet precision. A bow. A smile. Not forced. Light everywhere. Small, enough to brighten the day. Familiar. Like I never left.
My room waits. Shitsurae. Everything in its place. Nothing extra. Nothing missing. Season in the air. In the flowers. In the space between objects. Arranged for me. Or maybe I learned how to see it. Simplicity. Cut clean. Noise gone. Clarity like cold air through an open window. Mind sharpens. Pulse slows. The room breathes. I follow.
Outside, Tokyo burns. Neon. Movement. Want. Inside, purpose. Collision point. The place I disappear just long enough to come back sharper.
Two years ago. Same room. Same quiet. An idea. It did not ask permission. It just showed up. Violent. Beautiful. Incomplete. Boro. I saw it before it existed. A storm of fabric. History stitched into itself. Damage celebrated. I chased it. Flights to Okayama. One day. Every trip. Sunrise in the mills. Indigo under fingernails. Old men with hands that know more than books ever will. Words like anchors. Wabi-sabi. Kodawari. Shokunin. Sashiko. Laws.
A Shokunin does not repair to hide. He repairs to honor. Every stitch a scar. Every scar truth. Time becomes material. I built it piece by piece. Obsessed. Relentless. No compromise. And now it is here. In my hands. Finished two days ago. Delivered to the place it was born as a thought. Full circle feels too clean. This is something else. Heavier. Real. Years inside it. Today is Boro.
The work leaves me still. I move through the quiet of the hotel. The rhythm of service, the precision of gestures, the soft light. And the food. Morning, lobby, same table. Coffee. Precision. Silence not empty. Afternoon, matcha. Slow. Green. Grounding. Room service when the world is loud. Dinner high above it all. The city glows beneath me. You could stay here forever. Everything comes to you.
Art is everywhere. Not loud. Not begging. Waiting. Open your eyes or stop moving. The lobby shifts with the season. Sakura. Cherry blossom. Feel it before you understand. Spring but fragile. Floor to ceiling. Shitsurae again. Everything intentional. Everything breathing. I sit. I work. I stop. I exist. Like a gallery with no walls. Patterns form.
The staff. Same precision for all. Standard. But time creates something else. A glance. A slight shift. Recognition without announcement. Nothing said. Everything understood. I do not explain myself. Rare.
The staff. Same precision for all. Standard. But time creates something else. A glance. A slight shift. Recognition without announcement. Nothing said. Everything understood. I do not explain myself. Rare.
Life moves fast. Design. Travel. Roads that do not end. I make what I believe. Or not at all.
It is time. Bags packed. The plane waits. The city stretches below me. Tokyo burns. The neon, the streets, the people. I carry it all with me. Good bye. I am leaving, but I will be back. I will return. Thank you, Peninsula Tokyo. Thank you, Japan. I will see you soon. Until then, I go, I move, I chase what comes next, but this place will wait for me. Always.
- josh
engines hum. tires bite the road. spring smells like wet stone and old forests. hands scarred, eyes sharp. wind in our teeth. mountains rise. trees swallow everything. ghosts of a thousand years stare from moss and stone. ride. climb. disappear.
- josh
far from the neon noise and the machinery of men.
mountains rise. forests swallow the road.
air changes out here, clean, pure, quiet.
ancient breathing between the trees.
a path appears. just there.
stone steps carved by hands long turned to dust.
I climb. one step. another. a thousand..
ancient statues watch the trail. moss-covered faces.
buddhas. guardians. forgotten gods.
trees stretch toward the sky.
torii gates. old temples hiding between the trunks.
wind moving through the branches like whispers.
I climb. the world below disappears.
it opens.
a temple clinging to the side of the mountain.
impossible and perfect.
I sit. silence.
wind through the trees. mountain breathing.
something taps my shoulder. buddha... the wind... the mountain saying hello.
I'm not alone.
today...
- josh
Years now. Long roads, strange mornings. Coast breathing salt, volcanoes sleeping, mountains watching. Motorcycle under me.
Indigo everywhere. Fabric. Denim. Hands that know how to make things right.
Ghosts. Samurai bones. Tattoo ink. Shrines in the forest where the air goes quiet and the world slows down.
Cities, steel, neon and chaos. Skyscrapers clawing the sky.
Colliding. Opposites.
Here.
A peek into my Japan.
Winter biting. Storm howling.
Wet to the bone. Nearly broken.
I’m at peace.
Mother Nature, my guide.
My love.
The one that tests me.
Pulls me to live.
To search.
To go farther than sense.
A moment.
Catch my breath.
Take it in.
The inside storm slows.
The noise thins.
I’m here.
I’m alive.
faded. scarred. alive.
miles trapped in the seams.
ghosts in the whiskers.
a peek into the mind of BLACK BEAR BRAND!
meaning in everything... or nothing.
my head, a storm.
a thin break in the sky.
calm inside the chaos.
I dream faster than I live.
torn between stillness and speed...
where I exist.
Black Bear Brand is how I let it out.
wild lambskin. horsehide.
my mind, made into a vest.
Here it is.
Winter breaks things. It tests what’s real.
My breath lifts like a smoke signal to the gods. Snow under my boots. Ice under my tire. Evergreens stand watch, dark and touring, a cathedral of cold and white.
The wild is awake. Bears somewhere. Close enough to feel. I’m never alone.
Frozen beard bleeds into the long curly lamb. Horsehide carries the scars, every mile, every close call, every bad decision survived.
Heaven.
Real.
A dream.
Living.
a hundred years standing, too stubborn to die.
Black Bear Brand staring down time like it’s in on some cosmic joke.
maybe I’m the ghost now, the next chapter wearing the past on my back.
this is my Black Bear Brand. exactly what I want.
next is the thing I haven’t hallucinated yet
Royal Blue... king’s blood, sky-fire, river-pulse.
The old noble color. History’s madness bottled and poured across the day.
The sky tears open in electric blue wounds.
The river thrashes like it wants to drag me under.
Water is the king.
Sky the true noble.
I’m just caught between them, buzzing, alive.
And from that chaos we ripped a color, shoved it into a 30oz terry sweatsuit... garment-dyed, heavy, honest, cracked open with soul.
Royal Blue, reborn.
Here it is.
chasing the lunatic design boss screaming in my head.
blue skies melting into my brain like some cosmic drug.
the canyon that feels impossible, river snarling, sky vibrating,
the jacket, the hallucination I forced into reality.
design is the boss...
-sky-blue Harris Tweed, hand-woven insanity.
-a fabric that looks like it escaped from a fever dream.
-virgin wool, colors too bright to behave.