WERE YOU EVEN an actor in the 1990s if you didn’t own a leather blazer? During the decade, everyone from comic goldenchild Ben Stiller to “Mask of Zorro” star Antonio Banderas to “The Practice” heartthrob Dylan McDermott (right) could be seen in oil-slick, black leather blazers. It was a look that said “I’m edgy but not, like, that edgy”—a beguiling mix of C-suite tailoring and Hell Angels texture.
But as the sun rose on a new millennium, leather blazers faded. Preppy corduroy jackets and tweeds supplanted their glossy minimalism. Recently, however, the look has slithered back into the zeitgeist. This month, Grammy-nominated rapper Jack Harlow wore a vintage leprechaun-green leather Tommy Hilfiger sport coat to the Video Music Awards. One night later, singer Shawn Mendes sported a black leather Michael Kors blazer, without a shirt underneath, to the Met Gala. Both of them, born in 1998, were barely verbal in the ’90s.