Full Metal Jacket

Made from denim, the "jean jacket" was the uniform of rockers (who couldn't afford leather) back in the 70's and 80's. I wore mine conservatively; no giant hand drawn Rush or Led Zeppelin logos or album art on the back panel (I remember a guy in high school who painted an amazing Caress of Steel album cover onto the back of his jacket). Instead, I wore just a handful of my favourite band patches and pins across the chest. Let's see, there was Rush, The Police, Van Halen, AC/DC, and Led Zeppelin... my bands of choice at the time. Some of my favourites looked like this:

I also had a jacket dedicated to Rush, which I wore only to their concerts. It was one of those olive drab army things from the local military surplus store, a style that was popular back in the 80's. The jacket is long gone, but I've kept every one of the buttons, pins, and embroidered patches that used to adorn the jacket. There are stories behind many of those collectibles, how I hunted them down and sometimes happened upon them unexpectedly. And here's what they look like:

There are a couple of non-jacket items in there: the red Toronto Airport luggage tag bearing the YYZ code that inspired the song of the same name; and the key ring-fob to the right of the luggage tag. 

Oh, and the seemingly unrelated Eraserhead movie button to the left of the red tag.... well, real Rush fans will know the connection there. Alex Lifeson wore that same button onstage back in the 80's. So now you know.

Funny how the wearing of patches and buttons dwindled in the 90's but then seemed to resurface in the 2000's. Or maybe they were always there but I simply didn't notice. No, I'm pretty sure I'm right about this. A fashion cycle, maybe? I now see young people wearing buttons and occasionally a patch or two. It seems there's a more minimalist approach now, whereas back in the day, you'd see jackets absolutely covered in buttons and patches. It was often pretty gaudy, but hey, especially for metal-heads, putting your band loyalty on display was tantamount.