BIKER CHIC!!!

Mary Kate Olsen sporting the latest in protective streetwear...It just keeps coming back, like Herpes, and now Biker Chic is stronger than ever!  Every major fashion house has re-discovered the magnetic sexual pull of the black-clad motorcyclist, and cargo ships from China and Pakistan are foundering under the weight of thousands of cheap leather jackets headed to our shores.LiLo in black leather..ish.  She's got a biker attitude, and looks like she's been chasing white lines...It doesn't matter that the leather is under 1mm thick, as these jackets will never be used 'in anger', not even on a moped, because let's face it, ACTUAL motorcycling is dead as a doornail.  Kids today could give a hoot about escaping their schools, parents,...

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BACK TO WORKWEAR

A recent Double RL 'popup shop' in Bushwick Inlet Park, Brooklyn NYA recent move to NYC brought the welcome impression that America has gone back to Work!  Especially in the former epicenters of industrial labor like Brooklyn and Portland, places where men and women would gather to make Things, in riverside industrial hubs renowned the world over for their products, gritty realism, and pollution - all signs that production is really Happening.  So it appears on the streets of Williamsburg, where bearded, denim-clad young men pound the pavement looking like extras from 'The Gangs of New York'.  I haven't seen this much dress code uniformity since the 1970s in San Francisco, with packs of 'Castro clones' roaming the streets in...jeans...

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THE BLUE BIKE

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DRAPING KATE IN MATCHLESS ATTIRE

From WWD (Women's Wear Daily), possibly the best source of revamped motorcycle brand information on the planet!  Remember that Kate Moss was among the first models hired by the Malenottis to launch their Belstaff brand.Kate Moss, a Matchless G9 twin, another model, and photographer Terry Richardson"MATCHLESS MAKER: Matchless, one of Britain’s oldest motorcycle brands, is set to launch men’s and women’s outerwear collections in June — and the face of its fall/winter ad campaign is Kate Moss. Terry Richardson shot the black-and-white campaign at MC Motors, a former warehouse in London’s Hackney. Moss is pictured on a Matchless motorbike along with fellow model Andre Van Noord. The ads will break in June issues of “top-tier” titles, according...

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THE 'ALMA FOUR'

Story by Kim Scholer; Photographs by Jeppe SorensenLooking perfectly 'period', the Alma Four is a credit to its creator, Mads BartholinThe original Indian Four is a design icon, in its time among the most elegant motorcycles to grace the roads. Many attempts have been made to build a 'modern' copy, often using water-cooled car engines, but stylistically they're failures.  Except one, which lives an ocean away from where the Indian, ACE and Henderson Fours were brought to life. Mads Bartholin always wanted an Indian Four, but like most of us, he couldn't afford one. Well-kept Fours go for about US$50-80K, and restoring a bad one will likely cost the same. ACE and Henderson Fours were just as out of reach, and acquiring...

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MONTLHERY VINCENT: 100MPH FOR 6 HOURS

Coming to the Bonhams Stafford auction April 28th; the Montlhéry Vincent Black ShadowThe Montlhéry race circuit, just 15.5 miles south of Paris, holds a place much like Brooklands in England in the hearts of European speed-fans, but the track isn't a fractured memory from pre WW2, its a living thing in continuous usage since constructed in 1924.  Today the track is regularly pounded by automotive companies, being engineered to withstand 5,000lb racing cars traveling at 150mph - a far-sighted vision for 1920s engineers.  But then, French engineers of the early 20th Century were exactly that, out on the exploratory limbs of technology, making double overhead camshaft four-valve multi-cylinder motorcycles even in the 'Teens.  What...

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