Ok, lots of people ask me about my trench coat. Here’s the story:

In the video for “Science” which I shot in 1982 I rode up on an old motorbike and sidecar (a Norton I believe?) wearing a very large brown trenchcoat. I bought it from a shop in Soho, London called Demob, just for that shoot. I kept it at my house in England for many years, then it mysteriously went missing–probably fell prey to a souvenir seeker, when we rented the house out for a while.

When I started thinking about this tour, the look and feel of it, I BADLY wanted that trenchcoat back. It seemed to be just the thing to wear for the start of my set. Hoping beyond hope, I started to search online. eBay had a gazillion results for my search, but they were mostly black or tan leather Gestapo-style affairs, or staid Burberry macs, not the look I was after at all. Then suddenly–Eureka!–I found myself on a fashion website called Style.com, staring at THIS wonderful creation:

Now, this coat is almost identical to my ‘Science’ one, but has the cool mock-leather panels, and (if you zoom in to the collar) a very nice subtle pinstripe to it. It was designed by John Galliano, an enfant terrible of the fashion world mostly known for his womens’ clothes. And it was in his Spring 2006 Collection! So next I found out which US stores sell Galliano’s stuff, and it turned out Saks 5th Avenue does. But when I called the SF store they had never heard of this coat. So next I tried Galliano’s website, which evidently is based at his HQ in France. I filled in a ‘mailto:’ and explained my predicament. A few days later I got a reply from a sweet young Frenchman named Ludo. He said this coat was a one-off that John made for his friend Olivier, not in the general production line. But as I was planning to tour with it, Ludo said he’d refer it to ‘publicité’.

When ‘publicité’ came back, they said they couldn’t give me or sell me the coat, but they would loan it to me for the tour. Two weeks later, it arrived at my house wrapped in tissue paper in a box. And it was gorgeous! The first time I tried it on, late in the evening, complete with antique earphones and motorcycle goggles, I was delighted. I went to knock on my 13-yr-old Talia’s bedroom door, and when she opened the door on the darkened corridor I near scared the living daylights out of her. She must have thought aliens had come to abduct her. Here I am in my Galliano coat:

This shot was from a private warmup gig I did at a friend Heidi’s house in Silicon Valley. She had invited a bunch of friends over to hear me play. One person in the audience, she told me up front, was a rabid fan who used to come see me play in Paris in a previous century, her personal shopper at Saks 5th Av in San Francisco. His name is Jacques, and after my set he came bouncing up and said “you were great but, that coat…. tell me, is it Vivienne Westwood?” I said no, but for a second I couldn’t think of the designer’s name. Jacques was in torment. Eventually it came back to me and I said “John something…. Gallestrano maybe?” “oh my God, it’s Galliano? Of course, that makes PERFECT sense, John’s so great with mens’ clothes, I used to work for him in France and he’s EXACTLY my size so he used to give me his castoffs.” (Perhaps John could cast off this coat, I thought, in my general direction?)

I wore the coat proudly at four gigs in San Francisco and LA. But alas, only a couple of weeks later the Galliano camp needed me to return it for a runway show in Paris. Reluctantly I packed it up again and sent it back to Europe, with the promise that they would loan it back whenever I needed it next.

And in the meantime it appeared that my devotion to the coat had stimulated new interest in it from the boss man, Mr Galliano. I was told that he’d decided he wanted to wear it more himself, and I might not be able to depend on having it back for the tour. That’s all very well I thought, but Jeez, couldn’t you just make me another one?

Fearing a new Battle of Waterloo would ensue, I decided it was time to enlist the help of a friend and ally in the field, Dominik Fusina, a French artist whom I’ve known for years and who was willing to go to bat for me in the Galliano camp. Dominik knows the fashion scene well and is a big Galliano fan, so he was eager to see what he could swing for me. Sure enough, with a few calls he managed to get the company to agree to loan me the coat once more for my entire US tour this Spring.

But Dominik went a step further, and in his inimitable style, jotted off this fabulous cartoon for me, which I will treasure forever.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 6th, 2006 at 7:16 pm and is filed under Misc, Tour. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.