Motorcycles, The New Black

[Originally published as Paul d’Orléans’ monthly column in Classic Bike Guide, September 2013]

Have you noticed?  Old bikes are Everywhere nowadays – I mean, pick up a copy of Vogue (go ahead you slob, it won’t slap a bowtie on that horrid plaid shirt) and prepare for amazement; fashion models riding vintage Indians and Triumphs by the dozen! Dive into the pages of any fashion magazine today, and I mean this month, the lumbar-crushing September Issue; you’ll find it choc-a-bloc with old motorcycles.  It’s the greatest sexual commingling of Fashion and Motorcycles since the 1970s, which means the 2010s are the literal Children of those fabulous ‘70s Norton, Triumph, and BSA ad girls – all those groovily clad, or scantily unclad, superhot babes, who are now undoubtedly mothers if not grandmothers. You may in fact be married to one, you lucky greybeard, while your kids are hard at it, doing exactly what you did, at the age you did it.  Posing.

How did this trend begin?  Lately, it’s been sparked with the sparkly-gloved wunderkind of Fashion (not Michael Jackson, he’s dead); Chanel’s Karl Lagerfeld.  Karl is a secret motorcycle nut, with a collection of modern bikes, but he loves, just adores, the look of his favorite models on an old bike.  Because you’ve been busy reading my column in CBG, and not Hamish Bowles or Andre Leon Talley, you’ve missed the Chanel short films, made by Karl himself; inexplicable, plotless things featuring his gorgeously underfed muses shoplifting Chanel goodies (I kid you not) and escaping on a tasty Chanel-logo’d Triton (again, for realz), built by the Southsiders MC, who host Wheels and Waves.

An equally memorable Chanel short features Keira Knightley taunting identical/anonymous bikerboys (a clear homage to the feminist-bait music video ‘Addicted to Love’) from the bump-stop saddle (I’d say bum-stop, but KK has none) of her round-case Ducati 750 Sport, painted to match her fawn-colored suede jumpsuit, which in turn was created to match her Ruby helmet…which is exactly the course I took, having a bespoke Oswald Boateng Savile Row suit made to match MY Ruby helmet.  You too, right?  I mean, we all do, or should.  The ‘Coco Mademoiselle’ film climaxes – ooh – with Keira’s airborne stunt-double launching a dirtbike simulacra of the Ducati – transforming just like ‘Then Came Bronson’s Sportster – over a flight of stairs in la Premier arrondissement du Paris.  Shiver me timbers – classics kicking ass all over the home of Parcour!  We are so cool.

It’s the same in London and New York, and I hear the super-rich supergirls of Beijing, which just opened an MV Agusta dealership, are importing vintage bikes from America. Once they learn how to ride them, can sets of Louis Vuitton saddlebags be far behind?  Oh wait, I already have a pair (fer shizzles, they cool).  LV are way ahead of the curve; they’ve been offering LV-logo scooter helmets for years, and gold-plated goggles too.

Hermés are a little behind, but as one of the family sits on Yamaha France’s Board, you can actually buy an Hermés V-Max (I may fib a little, but I never lie), with snazzy leather trim.  And every year, if you’re paying attention, they offer one of those very large Hermés scarves with a motorbike pattern: yes I have them ALL.  And Longchamp – you know, those groovy little roll-up bags you keep in your luggage, just in case you go overboard on your LA shopping spree – featured a Gus Kuhn Norton Commando in last season’s campaign, with the ever-elegant Audry Marnay sat astride. Need a Backseat Billy, Auds?

Closer to home, dear old Alfred Dunhill were a full decade ahead of the pack, giving moto-fashion guru Nick Ashley carte blanche to Dunhillize, or whatever, a batch of Godet-Egli Vincents. It’s the shame of my adult life I didn’t get one, but I’m not sure anyone really did, as I hear they were all, gasp, de-logo’d, before being sold at knock-down prices.  Where Was Eeeeeye?

And now there’s a new bike gang in New York, looking like Peter Lindbergh’s 1980s photos, consisting of 6’ tall chain-smoking Fashionistas, called ‘The Stilettos’ – members must be under 110lbs – who ride vintage Harleys around Manhattan, terrorizing poorly-dressed tourists in Times Square, and making salacious offers to teenage Columbia undergrads – boys and girls alike.  You should see them kick over a stroked 104cu” Shovelhead in 7” Louboutin heels!  Gawd!  I’ve known men to pay for that kind of thing; now you can get it free, right there on the cobbled streets of the Meat Packing district.

Finally, in a nod to the Future, microscopic Japanese fashion models, always far out in front, have been spotted riding 1980s Bosozoku sportbikes, with crazy high fairings on their handlebars, and white vinyl seats padded up to their passenger’s necks.  Mark my words; Boso is the Future, and white vinyl will be the new Black.  Can’t you feel it?