Artisanal Stuff

It has always been fashionable to possess and enjoy handmade things. In motorcycling this usually means waxed cotton or leather bags and old-school traditional rider’s gear.

It’s all good.

Most of our products are crafted by hand. Some are made in two equally authentic versions:  One using the absolute latest high-tech modern synthetic fabrics and components, and the other with old-school materials like waxed cotton. Each has a place, and each offers a unique mix of real +’s and –‘s.

A few older motorcycle bums may remember watching the brilliant comedy performer and writer Bob Einstein playing a character he created called 'Super Dave Osborne'.  It was his razor-sharp parody of famous daredevils like Evil Knievel, and of obsessive gear nerds everywhere. Einstein was a Canadian and always got laughs talking about his specialized daredevil equipment which usually included “handmade moose hide mukluks”. That particular well-remembered joke repeated enough to become a core part of his act because everyone always laughed.

Today (thirty years later) I own a pair of genuine, artisanal handmade moose hide mukluks, and my wife has them too. It turned out they actually are a lighter, simpler, warmer, easier-to-wear and more comfortable type of outdoor footwear in really cold and snowy situations. Which explains why they became fashionable where there’s lots of snow and cold. The small local Minnesota-based company which made ours has done well.

Bob Einstein’s mukluk joke remains funny, though now I better-appreciate why simple handmade gear often works, wears, fits and feels better than more complicated similar items designed by people who don’t actually use an item much, and which for cost reasons are made using assembly line systems located far from where the products are being used.

All of the world’s sewn clothing --  from mukluks, to high fashion and business wear, to cheap generic imported T shirts – is mostly handmade. Fabric cutting processes were robotized many years ago, including here at Aerostich, but even the best computerized sewing equipment currently available cannot manage to quickly and efficiently move a mix of soft materials through a sewing machine’s stitching systems as expertly as a talented human. Producing beautifully sewn compound curves and complex shapes when combining multiple fabrics remains an art requiring world-class skill, talent and concentration.

There is a difference between mass produced fashion-branded garments made to be highly marketable, and Aerostich gear. Both are handmade, but one is produced on large standardized assembly lines in annually revised variations, while the other looks almost the same decade after decade, incorporating ongoing small detail improvements. One is available in six or eight easy-to-inventory sizes and the other is available in over sixty.

When you have access to industrial sewing at a very low cost, it is tempting to focus on cramming as many features as possible into a given product until it ends up being complicated and expensive. Heavier, too because you continue adding more and more until it becomes almost a kind of costume like what ‘Super Dave’ always wore. For bamboozling inexperienced and insecure consumers, and for maximizing profit, that is just what you do.

Over the long run usually whatever is simplest, lightest and most functional works best.  Examples include those amusing artisanal moose hide mukluks and the Aerostich armored coveralls.

There is a wonderful brief scene making fun of overdone fashion clothing in the very old movie ‘Beverly Hills Cop’. Eddie Murphy plays a regular-guy Detroit cop named Axel Foley and he’s just arrived in LA to investigate the murder of his hometown friend. He’s walking down the sidewalk of a warm sunny west LA shopping street and passes a fashion-conscious couple walking the other direction wearing matching leather designer outfits. After he’s a few steps past them he doubles over in silent laughter.

Fashions change.