This Liam Gallagher Bomber Jacket Is Legendary. But Its Aura Is Non-Transferable
Words by
Ollie Cox
The whereabouts of a legendary garment belonging to the musician has been revealed. But it’s not getting much action.
Can you get out-done by your jacket? If said item once-belonged to Liam Gallagher, then the answer is yes.
This week, X user @_juNElight shared their appreciation for a shearling bomber worn by the musician, writing “I love Liam Gallagher in that jacket. It's cool af. I wonder if he still wears it,” on the platform. It didn’t take long for the musician – famous for his raw, unfiltered updates – to reply. “Gene has it but he can't pull it off like I did so it just hangs there in his wardrobe waiting for his daddy to come and rescue him,” shared.
Gene Gallagher has his finger on cool’s pulse. He’s the frontman of rock band Villanelle, and has starred in fashion campaigns for Burberry and adidas, which seemingly come naturally to him given who his dad is. So if he can’t wear this jacket, who can? And importantly, what empowers such a jacket to aura-mog anyone who dares to wear it who isn’t its owner?
This shearling bomber jacket was worn by the Oasis frontman in April 1995 for an appearance on Channel 4’s 1990s rock show The White Room. In it, ran through a medley of the band’s early bangers including “Acquiesce” and “Talk Tonight”. Firstly, it’s an incredible piece of functional outerwear; it’s a heavyweight bomber crafted from leather with a shearling collar, a style initially designed for Second World War pilots to survive freezing temperatures at high altitudes.
But given this is a cropped leather jacket, the kind of garment that naturally elongates the legs and makes you look taller and like you can fly a plane. Throw in the added coolness of being worn by Gallagher at the height of Britpop-mania, and you’re looking at the gold standard of aura-packed outerwear. Take it from Too Hot founder Ollie Evans, who spoke on Liam Gallagher’s outerwear for Man About Town last year . “I think this goes back to the Mancunian thing. It’s something synonymous with the city, that you have to have a good jacket living there [in Manchester] due to the climate. Also, because it’s a very stylish and culturally driven city, it stands to reason that you get the best-looking status symbol you can,” he said at the time.
What makes this jacket more impressive is that it marks a specific era of Oasis. These clothes came before the 2000s double-denim and preceded the super-techy Ten-C parkas that outfitted the “Live ’25” comeback tour. X user @sadgreg25 gets it, stating that it is “still one of the coolest jackets ever worn on stage,” in the comments section. “Gene's got a serious family heirloom on his hands there.” Although it seems, for now at least, its entrenched rizz is non-transferable.
But this isn’t the only time a jacket has been entrenched in its wearers’ lore that it has set the bar unrealistically high for any future fit check. Robin Williams, immortalised Issey Miyake’s Autumn/Winter 1996 bomber jacket at the 1997 New York premiere of Flubber in 1996. Marlon Brando ensured the leather biker jacket remains an unimpeachable menswear grail when he sported it in Wild One, and of course, Harry Styles has given The Row’s blue Josha chore jacket celebrity status. It’s not impossible to wear these items outside of their bolstered, high-profile stage. But maybe when you’re too close to the source like Gene, the smart thing to do, is to keep it on ice.
Scroll on for a look at some of menswear’s spiciest outerwear hits.
Robin Williams’ Issey Miyake AW96 bomber jacket
Nicolas Cage’s snakeskin jacket in Wild at Heart
James Dean’s red blouson in Rebel Without a Cause
Harry Styles’ The Row chore jacket
Marlon Brando’s leather jacket in The Wild One
Goldie’s yellow puffer jacket at the Mission: Impossible premiere in 1996
Jimmy’s Quadrophenia parka
Austin Butler’s Carhartt Traditional jacket
