There was a time when bikers wore the Schott Perfecto leather jacket – the first to be designed specifically with motorcycling in mind – and pulled offa passing imitation of Marlon Brando in The Wild One. Small wonder that this classic style has become a menswear icon. But with the 80s shift in biking styles, from cruisers and café racers to sports bikes, biker clothing began to make its wearer look more like a sci-fimovie extra: all gaudy colours, logos and obvious armour plating. It was the kind that needed to be changed out of if the biker was planning to meet civilised company at their destination.

“Yet the interest of the fashion industry in biking has worked both ways – biker- clothing design has now taken more cues from fashion,” says Triumph's head of clothing, accessories and licensing, Heidi Benjamin. “It used to be very bold and solid, such that you could barely move in it. But changes in both taste and technicality mean that you would barely know the functionality was there now. There is biker clothing that works for the growing number of people who ride for leisure or to commute to work.”

Triumph’s own Heritage collection, for example, includes jackets in distressed brown leathers with antique brass detailing, the more minimalist, collarless Lexford style, jeans that weave in ballistic materials to give protection without sacrificing all panache and other pieces with membrane systems to give leathers the performance of advanced textiles.

Nor is Triumph alone. Puma has combined its sportswear technical know- how and followed its move into fashion collections with a line of touring clothing, aiming to set it apart from the more technical-looking products from biker- clothing specialists such as Alpinestars, REV'IT! and Dainese. Yet even REV'IT! has created the likes of its retro CR Collection and camel Rogue jacket: “urban motorcycle wear that doesn’t appear, on first glance, to be anything but stylish”, as the company puts it.

Retro is getting seriously historical too. Tuscany-based workshop Stewart Leather has gone down the motorway of vintage style by launching a line of artfully aged replicas of leathers from the pre-war era. And this spring’s new line of biker jackets from Lewis Leathers – whose high-fashion credentials date back to its influential collaboration with Comme des Garcons in 2002 – is similarly inspired by pieces Lewis first made in the 1940s, including a button-front biker jacket, flying boots and racer suit for a style more Ace Cafe than hairy biker.

“The fact is that there are plenty of highly functional jackets on the market that offer maximum protection," says Lewis Leathers owner Derek Harris, "but none of them have really retained the style of the 40s and 50s. In the bike world, as in fashion and others, there is a renewed, perhaps recessionary appreciation for the quality and timeless looks of the past – certainly those contrary to the biker clothing market’s more recent habit of changing designs on a seasonal basis, which, despite being an expensive investment, has meant clothing has also dated much faster. Look at the growing demand for old-style motorbikes too.”

Indeed, the shift towards bike clothing in the more classic mould follows a similar trend in the bikes themselves, not least a collaboration between Lewis Leathers and famed British brand Royal Enfield on an updated Bullet 500. Norton has also reissued models. And Triumph, which has collaborated on clothing lines with Paul Smith, has seen a resurgence thanks to the launch of its ‘modern classics’ line of bikes with a 60s look, including the Thruxton and the Bonneville. Last year even saw the rebirth of Brough Superior – the legendary company, created in 1919, that made its last motorbike at the outbreak of the Second World War. Famously, Lawrence of Arabia died on one in 1935. This year will see five new Brough Superiors bespoke-made to the full 1927 specification.

“The retro-bike scene is a growing sub-culture that is part of the same non- conformist interest in vintage clothing or design," says Brough’s new owner, Mark Upham. "It’s the thrill of the hunt, an appreciation for original design, or having something made for you to a very high standard."

The return of the classic machine has given motorcycling a new fashionability, allowing Triumph, for example, to pick up the likes of George Clooney and Brad Pitt as customers. This has, the company acknowledges, sparked an interest among new, style-conscious riders who might not have considered motorcycling before.

The bikes look the part but typically use modern components, and the same can be said of the clothing. If the first revolution in biker gear came 30 years ago – when waterproof and lightweight micro-fibres, together with abrasion-proof fabrics such as Cordura and Kevlar first became available, bringing a distinctive look with them – these days nano-tech fabrics and new rubber compounds provide a more lightweight, almost invisible armour that enables biker style to step up a gear once more.

The result, increasingly, is the best of both worlds. Belstaff , whose Trailmaster jacket of the 1950s was a biker gear benchmark – Che Guevara wore one in his motorcycle journey across Latin America – has this season launched a new hybrid line, old-fashioned in style but using nylon fabric science to improve breathability and lightness. Lewis Leathers has a line following this thinking in the pipeline.

“Today we use essentially beautiful fabrics, with a great handle and able to take any dye, but ones technical enough to allow all the practical necessities – they give designers of biker clothing the kind of flexibility they haven’t had before,” argues Leiah Lamplough, technical product manager for Triumph, which in September will launch two technical jackets designed in collaboration with Barbour, makers of the first waxed cotton biker jacket in 1938 and whose own International – as worn by Steve McQueen – has been relaunched to celebrate the company’s 75th birthday. “That is a good thing: the fact is that today’s rider not only wants performance, but wants to look good too.”

REV'IT!

CR Collection

Price: €160 A retro jacket made with soft leathers
www. revit.eu

LEWIS LEATHERS

Plainsman

Price: €735 A 60s design inspired by screen Westerns
www. lewisleathers.com

BELstaff

KenlayBomberMan

Price: €828 Made from replica leather and coated wax
www.belstaff..com