Brian Goss
This is how to find your look: first buy leather pants. Pick a style that works for you, get a pair that fit well and wear them with your attitude, whatever that attitude is. Now repeat for the rest of your body.
Let’s dig deeper. When it comes to dress leather is not what it used to be. It’s much bigger. Gone are the days of the 70s when leather meant jeans, engineer boots, leather jackets and Muir caps. Depending on your point of view this is either a good thing or a bad thing but either way it’s reality. The options avaliable to you today for leather/fetish/sport gear are larger than they have ever been. Leather isn’t even all black anymore like it used to be. The result is the opportunity to come up with a unique look like never before–provided you don’t get bewildered by too many options or make basic mistakes. Here is how to find the look that is right for you based on my experience with my own leather makeover.
Back to picking pants. There are different styles of leather pants: biker/motorcycle cop, jeans, fetish, uniform. Pick a style that works for you: this means something that fits your body type but more than anything something that reflects your personality and interests. If you’re not a biker you probably should not get biker pants no matter how much you like them. They are not you. If you wear them you will probably feel inauthentic and–here is what you need to take away–YOUR BODY LANGUAGE WILL REFLECT IT. I cannot emphasize how important it is to pick leather/gear that you will feel comfortable in, which advertises who you are and what you are lookimg for. It’s the heart and soul of your leather look. Even if you buy something that fits well, if you are not truly comfortable with it you will look uneasy and people will respond negatively. Your clothing has to be a reflection of your interests and your personality. Pick the right clothing and the opposite will happen. You will feel confident, attractive and your entire experience will change. I know because I lived this.
In 2015 I ran for a leather title in my hometown of Long Beach, California, a contest that feeds contestants to Mr LA Leather. Not knowing what to pick, I put together a look that was composed mostly of leather that looked good on the rack or on other guys but which ultimately did not look especially good on me and as a set: biker racing pants, a Sam Brown, a leather shirt, a tie, borrowed boots. At the time I thought it looked good. Looking back I disagree with my earlier self. It was bland, unspecified to me and and certainly did not give me the confident attitude I needed.
A couple of years later I decided to revamp my look. It happened by accident. I thought I had lost my leather pants and needed new ones. (They were hidden inside a jacket.) It was a stroke of good luck. This time I decided to buy pants that reflected the fact that I’m a fetish guy–biker, uniform, traditional leather are not my interest–so I bought fetishy looking pants. After buying the pants I realized that the other leather I owned did not work with the pants and one thing lead to another: harness, slave collar, gauntlets/wrist bands, fetish stuff. Oh and why not grow the beard out and darken it and get a mohawk. The results were literally immediate. Even before the new look was finished I went out to a local bar and found myself standing behind someone I knew, a title brother I had run against 2 years before. He turned around, did a double take, smiled and said “Brian?!” I was nearly unrecognizable to him.
Confidence is the most attractive and important thing you can display and this is how you achieve it. It will transform you the way it transformed me. I OWN my look and it shows. The feeling when I put it on and go into a leather event is indescribable and, in some ways, the transformative experience leather is all about. You can do the same by following this principle. Just because something looks good on someone else or on a rack does not mean it will look good on you. You need to be guided by a different attitude. Years ago I bought a chain harness because it looked good on another guy. I was never happy with how it looked on me, never wore it and eventually gave it away. Don’t make that mistake. Start your next leather look by looking inside instead of at others.
“Looking good and dressing well is a necessity. Having a purpose in life is not.”
– Oscar Wilde
