The Hives at Lewis Leathers

The Hives at Lewis Leathers

A couple of weeks ago, on the afternoon of their show in Hyde Park, the Hives dropped-in to see us in search of something new to wear this coming Autumn.

It took the best part of an hour to measure the boys up, all the time chatting and enjoying their boundless energy, finally the driver rapped on the window to inform them that it was time to go as they had to be onstage later in just over an hours time.

26-Jul-10 12:11

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Honeyee Interview Pt 2

Honeyee Interview Pt 2

Andrew Bunney talking to Derek Harris Pt 2

Honeyee post a follow-up to their feature titled “The History of Lewis Leathers”. Continuing where they left off, part 2 goes into detail behind what the brand represented through the 60s and 70s, its importance to the world of motorcycles and its heritage as a British-made brand.

Andrew Bunney (A): Were any groups of young people going to Lewis Leathers specifically for the name by the ‘60s?

Derek Harris (D): There were other labels around like Mascot, Pride And Clarke, but Lewis Leathers was always the jacket to have partly through clever marketing, but also through the quality and styling.

The main thing was the 59 Club), the motorcycle group set up by Father Bill Shergold. He was a motorcyclist, but he’d been watching all these kids dying trying to do ‘the ton’ and not understanding the danger they were in and not appreciating death. It was already called the 59 Club from 1959, but in 1962 he went up to the Ace Café and started handing out leaflets to come to this youth club in East London. They laughed at him a little bit, but they went on the first night and little by little more and more went and they would have dances. They would never try and force religion onto these kids, but they would council them and see if anything was wrong at home and they would work with the police and try and give these kids some sort of direction.

From late 1962, Lewis Leathers would go there, onto the stage in the church hall and take a load of jackets, badges and tape measures and measure up these kids – two weeks later they would come back with a jacket.

09-Jul-10 16:23

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Return to Hackney Wick

Return to Hackney Wick

 

Stylist and Photographer, Hitomi Soeda, recently took the following photos of PunkStep Pioneers NOVA.

Nova were photographed by Hitomi wearing some items from the Lewis Leathers archive, the shots were taken in the yard of the Eton Mission, which as many will know, was the birthplace of the 59 Club and a venue which Lewis Leathers visited every fortnight loaded with goodies and made to measure jackets for the club members.

05-Jul-10 10:47

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HONEYEE INTERVIEW Pt 1

HONEYEE INTERVIEW Pt 1

ANDREW BUNNEY INTERVIEWS DEREK HARRIS ABOUT LEWIS LEATHERS

The latest feature from honeyee has the popular Japanese site focusing on the history of Lewis Leathers with an in-depth interview alongside brand owner Derek Harris. Amongst the many topics, honeyee breaks down Harris’ involvement in the brand and how he managed to make Lewis Leathers into one of the UK’s most enduring companies. Andrew Bunney conducts the interview, which can be seen below.

*Above text courtesy of Hypebeast

29-Jun-10 21:27

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All About AVIAKIT

All About AVIAKIT

People often ask us why we use the Aviakit logo as aninternal label in our jackets and what its significance is to Lewis Leathers asa company.

The answer lies in our association with flying clothing andkit in the first quarter of the 20th Century, looking at theearliest advertisements we have in the LL archive, it can be noted as early as1930 that the name AVIAKIT is used as the Telegram address as can be seen at the foot of the advertisement on the left.

At around the same time D Lewis Ltd produced woven labelswith the Aviakit brand name, the earliest type has the wording Shrunk BDA‘Rigmel’ below –which presumably means that they were first developed for theCivilian all-cotton Summer flying helmets featured in adverts of the time and werethen later used for the leather versions, D Lewis Ltd labels can also be seenin helmets from the same period.


26-Jun-10 16:02

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The Discovery Channel visits Lewis Leathers

The Discovery Channel visits Lewis Leathers

Late last month we had a visit from the Discovery Channel who are making a Documentary on the Cafe Racer Phenomenon which is now a growing scene Worldwide.

Mike Seate of US magazine Cafe Racer brought Director Ed and Scott from the Discovery Channel along with Blake motorcycle racer and reviewer, the team spent the whole day here and we were also joined by Marco and Roberto of Moto Special magazine of Italy, who were working on a feature of LL to be published later this month.

We were also joined by an intrepid group of riders on the vintage machines who made it despite the rain, in no special order thanks go out to: Shaun & Sue, Dave Carroll, John, Stuart, John, Boleslaw, Cres, Yasmin and Gavin!

26-Jun-10 14:02

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Welcome to our blog

Welcome to our blog

Welcome to the Lewis Leathers blog,

it has arrive somewhat later than anticipated but, finally its up & running and now we have to decide what to fill it with, so please excuse our fumbling early attempts, it can only get better!

 

16-Jun-10 20:05

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Lewis Leathers New Shop opens in Central London

Lewis Leathers New Shop opens in Central London

Last December we moved out of our Showroom base in Paddington to a new premises in Fitzrovia, Central London, this is the first fully-fledged Lewis Leathers shop since our original HQ in Great Portland Street closed its doors in 1993.

Our new address is:

3-5 Whitfield Street,London,
W1T 2SA,

Tel: 020 7636 4314

We are just 3 minutes walk from Oxford Street, 5 minutes from Tottenham Court Rd Tube Station and 3 minutes from Goodge St station:

From Tottenham Ct Rd, look out for the Rising Sun pub, turn into Windmill street and we are one street over on the next corner.If coming from Oxford Street, turn into Rathbone Place and walk into Charlotte Street, turn right into Windmill Street and we are just around the corner in Whitfield Street.

Our opening hours are 11am to 6pm Monday to Saturday.

15-Feb-10 12:22

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