JIM MORRISON'S LEATHER PANTS: ORIGIN AND MEANING

Jim Morrison's clothing played an extremely important role in building the image of The Doors. Among the outfits that made the group's frontman famous, leather pants surely stand out.

Morrison began wearing these eye-catching pants in the summer of 1967, specifically in mid-June, while the group was beginning to gain a wider fame.

This was around the time the band was recording their second album, "Strange Days" (released a few months later, in September 1967).

More than a year and a half had passed since the official founding of The Doors, and the singer will keep on wearing leather pants of different kinds until the early spring of 1969.

We can see how Morrison's most famous image, the one made unforgettable by the leather pants, lasted barely two years compared to the total five and a half years he spent in the band.

Where did the idea to wear this kind of pants came from?

What was the motivation behind this decision, apart of course from Morrison's personal taste?

Let's try to answer these two questions.

The origin of the leather pants is clarified in an interview given by Ray Manzarek, the keyboardist of The Doors.

According to Manzarek, Morrison was inspired by Marlon Brando in the 1960 movie "The Fugitive Kind", directed by Sidney Lumet.

In some scenes in the movie, the actor actually wore a snakeskin jacket.

So, we can see how Jim Morrison's cinematic passion is behind the most famous garment in rock history.

A passion for films and cinema that was born in college with a degree in cinematography and has not faded ever since.

The significance of leather pants in the Doors' shows was not limited to the transgressive and sensual image they created.

Those pants, combined with the physicality with which Morrison displayed it onstage, added an even greater impact to the theatrical nature of the band's concerts.

With their visual impact, the leather pants helped to convey the unrepeatable scenography made up of sound and movements that the band and Morrison conceived.

That outfit wasn’t just a cult object in the history of rock. It wasn’t just a symbol of the dark sensuality that the singer exerted on the audience. It was a true instrument of art, worn in an extremely passionate way and without pretense by the singer..

Morrison's leather pants were an important part of the unique show staged by The Doors, who forever reshaped modern music’s ways of expression by bringing theatre on stage.

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