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The Origin Story: B3 Bomber Jacket in WWII
In World War II, some bombing raids took place from altitudes of at least 25,000 feet, or 4-ish miles, where ambient temperatures could reach negative 58 degrees Fahrenheit or cold. These cabins were uninsulated. No insulation. The issue with negative 58 degrees and an uninsulated cabin, though, is that you die.
Believe it or not, though, a man who jumped out of planes and tested parachutes for a living actually fixed the problem for people who stayed in the planes. Leslie L. Irvin invented the B3 bomber jacket. Possibly the coolest jacket ever invented. Let’s get into this B3 bomber jacket review.
Welcome to Today’s Article
So, Snailiens, it’s Michael. We’re talking about the B3 bomber jacket today, and I’m very excited. And this article features a new friend I made, Nick Kova. Nick Kova looks like a superhero.
So, he has a B3 bomber jacket, a crazy cool one that I will talk about in a little bit, but I also have one. And this is going to be a story article. So, lock in.
Engineering Behind the B3: A Fun Fact
First, a fun fact that I found out recently about the B3 bomber jacket is that, typically, a sign of low quality in a leather jacket is paneling all over the jacket. It’s harder to find a big piece of leather that’s perfect than a bunch of little smaller, sewn-together pieces.
The reason a B3 sheepskin bomber jacket is paneled is that when someone was up in a bomber if the jacket tore on the back, it would keep ripping if it wasn’t paneled. And if that happened, the person wearing the jacket would get frostbite on their back. So, they paneled it, and those little piping lines are actually goat skin, and the tear would stop there.
So it wouldn’t destroy the entire jacket. Mikey loves that fun fact. This jacket encapsulates my greatest achievement ever, the closest I’ve ever felt to a group of people, and my biggest failure. So, I’m going to tell you the story today.
The Jacket’s Design Features
Luckily, I met Nick Kova yesterday. I was going to say there are a lot of things and details left out of my jacket that are typically on a B3. He had one with all the bells and whistles, so we can go over this perfectly.
The most simple thing is that B3 bomber jackets are made of sheepskin. Now, sheepskin, the issue with that is that it’s not the toughest leather. So, it rips, it tears. That’s why the back is all paneled.
But this is why I really like the B3 jacket because there are a lot of ingenious ways to make this tank of a jacket work even better. So, the first really cool thing about this jacket is you’ll see that the collar is huge.
The reason for that is so you can pop it up really high around your ears and kind of sink into it. The other detail that’s only on Nick’s jacket is around the cuff. There is a little leather piping that closes the cuff a little bit, and then it opens back out where your hands are. But the reason for that is to seal any air coming up from the cuff into the jacket.
And then, the final cool detail on the jacket is that, as I said before, sheepskin is not a very robust leather. On nice B3s, there is horse-hide leather stitched on top of sheepskin in high-wear areas.
So, you’ll see Nick has it on the arms. Some jackets have it going on the sides and like the bottom.
Paint the Eyes First: A Personal Journey
It all starts with this book. And with this jacket and all of its details. It’s time for a story. It’s time for a story. A very special story, especially for you.
More importantly, this jacket was the most important prop in a movie that I made, wrote, directed, and starred in. It was a little obnoxious and I would never do that again or recommend doing that again. But the movie was called “Paint the Eyes First.” I’ll tell you about that now.
So, I made a movie called “Paint the Eyes First.” And I made that movie while I was in college. And it was the biggest film ever done at my college. Don’t want to brag. It was the biggest film that I had ever done. And to this day, logistically, it is still the biggest film that I have ever done. But it was also very important because it was the thing that I basically put everything on.
I basically said when I made this film, if this film doesn’t work out, I will give up film, and I will never do it again. Which is really not a good mindset to have and what I found out through doing “Paint the Eyes First” is that that’s not how it works. If you really like something, you just need to keep working on it.
And all you really need is for one thing to go right. And once it does, then you’re good. But you can’t put all your eggs in one basket. Otherwise, you will stop.
I didn’t make films for two years and I just thought, you know, it’s done. When I finished the film, I submitted it to a lot of festivals, and I spent a couple thousand dollars right after college when I didn’t have that much money, and it got rejected from every single festival. And I did not know how to handle that.
So I called the film a failure, but it was really anything but a failure. I made incredible friends, had an incredible time on the film and learned a lot about film-making at the same time. And I’m very proud of myself for doing it back then.
Fun fact, I literally went insane making that movie. I stopped listening to music. I took off all my jewelry, watches, and necklaces and didn’t wear any of my clothes. I was basically only wearing the costume.
But anyway, more importantly, the jacket. It was the most important character in the entire film. This is a B3 bomber jacket that I thought about for a very long time when designing it. I bought like four different ones and settled on one and I love it.
The Symbolism: Wolves, Tigers, and Metaphors
Okay, back to the meat, back to the B3 bomber jacket review. Looking at this jacket, breaking it down, it’s a very, very standard and more fashion jacket than an actual B3 bomber jacket.
So, it’s not really anything special, but what is special is the actual things that I put on the jacket. It feels weird saying it’s special because I put them on the jacket. But it is to me what makes the jacket cool.
We’ll save the painting on the back for last because there’s a little bit more that goes into it. But the other thing is the pins all over the jacket, which I still love.
And I feel like one day, maybe for the snail, if I ever get to a point where I can make shearling jackets and stuff or even just sherpa jackets with denim, I’d love to put pins in them. I feel like it looks so cool to have the fluff and then really cool pins.
But a big motif of the film was a wolf. The lone wolf and stuff. We’ll get to that in a little bit. But the main character, James, is a lone wolf and he’s supposed to be very connected to nature.
The way that this jacket worked out is since there was a storm flap for the zipper, a little bit of the jacket flipped over and kind of jutted out. And I filled that with pins of all different animals. But what is really important is the pin on the chest, which is the wolf with the crown above it.
And then, on the collar itself, there are two tigers because James had a brother. The film was about addiction, and I didn’t want the main character of the film, James, to go through addiction on screen. So, I abstracted it through metaphors. There was a sea monster. I think that’s pretty cool.
And then there was James’s brother, who was another representation of withdrawal and he kind of chases him through the film. So, on the collar, there are two tigers. There is a diamond tiger that James is following one and the other one. And they are chasing each other in a circle around the collar. That’s the, that’s the pins.
The Back of the Jacket: Italian Opera Meets WWII Art
The back of this jacket, hopefully, you think it’s cool, but it was something I designed for the film, and it was a very integral part. You’ll see it says “in the mouth of the wolf,” and this originated in Italian opera.
It was a pre-show call and response where everybody would say in Italian, “in bocca al lupo,” and respond with “crepi il lupo,” which means “may the wolf die.” That was a big motif in the film – in the heart of danger, overcome it, kill the wolf. So that was a big deal.
And then obviously the painting is just because in World War II, that was when all the jackets got painted on the back, all the A2s for the most part, and in this case, a B3.
And actually, someone will correct me on this because a lot more people know a lot more about the military than I do, but it wasn’t permitted to paint on the back of your jacket or to paint on your plane by the military but since they were in the middle of war, the powers of the military were like, okay, they can do that.
They can paint on their helmets, they can paint on their jackets, they can paint on the planes. And that’s how we got some of the coolest modern-day wartime artwork of all, and it makes these jackets so cool.
Watch This Review
Where I Am Now
So yeah, that’s really it for my B3 bomber jacket review. That’s the end of the story. I was at a very low point when the film flopped, and I was like, I guess I’ll never make films again. And now I have The Iron Snail.
I have an ad agency, and I work at Theo and Harris, we’ve made like 30 films this year. And I’m writing four films as we speak! Well, not all at once, one at a time. Everything’s going well! Anywho, thanks so much!
This article was adapted from Michael Kristy’s video on The Iron Snail, with edits from FashionBeans, and was reviewed by Michael to ensure the integrity of his original content. Watch the full video here.
The Iron Snail is a men’s fashion vlog (and now article series!) starring a young man named Michael and featuring a snail no bigger than a quarter. The two are set on taking over the world of fashion by creating a clothing line to end all clothing lines. Until then, we’re here to tell you EVERYTHING you need to know about the best clothing out there, from the highest quality raw denim jeans to the warmest jackets to the sturdiest boots…the Iron Snail has got you covered.