Top Ten Uses For Leather
From Clint Eastwood's cowboy hats to Angelina Jolie's combat boots in Tomb Raider, leather clothes and accessories have long graced the shining stars of filmdom. But some Hollywood characters have become particularly synonymous with their leather-heavy ensembles. These are ten such characters.
Edward Scissorhands
Johnny Depp's super-gothic tragic hero may have been based on Frankenstein's monster, but his sense of style had 'bondage fetishist' written all over it. When combined with his Robert Smith hairdo and his trademark hazardous hands, Edward's weird leather look came out looking creepy but oddly fashion forward.
Catwoman
The original Adam West TV series and Halle Berry's Catwoman had their own variations on the feline femme fatale's leather bodysuit, but Michelle Pfieffer's hand-stitched ensemble in Batman Forever remains one of the best movie costumes ever. If only putting together a skintight superhero costume using closet scraps was as easy as she made it seem.
The Matrix
What would a race of futuristic super warriors who live in a network of spacecrafts and underground cave towns wear? According to the Matrix films, the answer is yards and yards of mysteriously well crafted black leather.
Johnny Strabler
When you think of black motorcycle jackets, two images immediately pop into mind: The Fonz and Marlon Brando in The Wild One. Marlon's iconic biker character, Johnny Strabler, even made a prominent recent appearance in a MasterCard commercial. As the ads say, some things never go out of style.
Maximux
Russell Crowe portrayed Gladiator's near-mythical warrior Maximus with conviction and passion, but what really made him come to life (besides gallons of fake sweat) was his fitted leather tunics. And by 'come to life' we mean star in the fantasies of lonely housewives everywhere.
Pinhead
Pinhead may not have been the main character in Clive Barker's Hellraiser series (he didn't even have a name in the original film), but he remains a fan favorite due to his quirky take on body art and his curiously refined nature. However, without his strappy leather outfits, he wouldn't look quite so freakishly demonic. Imagine Pinhead in khaki slacks - not so terrifying.
Jim Stark
James Dean's classic ne'er-do-well in Rebel Without a Cause redefined cool with his smoldering gaze and disaffected attitude. But it was his awesome leather jacket that fans remembered him for, and it was that very clothing item that eventually caused his doom when it got caught in his car door during a chicken race at the film's conclusion. When Dean himself died in a car accident shortly thereafter, at the tender age of 24, it was a tragic case of life imitating art.
Indiana Jones
Not just anyone can pull off a matching leather fedora and jacket, not to mention a rugged five o' clock shadow that strikes the perfect balance between brutish and gentlemanly. But Harrison Ford pulled it off effortlessly, even managing to make a leather whip look cool rather than dorky.
Emma Peel
Sure, you could argue that this saucy British superspy, one half of the titular dynamic duo from television's
The Avengers, is more of a small screen character. But since Hollywood made the unfortunate decision to adapt the show into a terrible film starring Uma Thurman in Diana Rigg's classic role, we can fairly include Mrs. Peel on the list.
The Crow
What did goth kids do before The Crow? Brandon Lee's reanimated superhero gave loners everywhere hope that one day they could come back from the dead and take revenge on everyone who used to call them freaks. It also sent them scampering to Hot Topic to spend their parents' money on black leather outfits and lots and lots of eyeliner.