America’s Rebels All Love This Leather Jacket

Walk onto the factory floor of Schott NYC in the quiet New Jersey suburb of Union and you’ll find an intoxicating smell of fine leather, pulsating sounds of aged sewing machines, and the beating heart of an American classic. Miles outside of the fashion capital of Manhattan, the company’s fourth-generation chief operating officer, Jason Schott, inspects a roll of cowhide leather that will eventually be transformed into a classic styling of his family’s eponymous jackets. But Schott didn’t get a pass because he is the great-grandson of founder Irving Schott: This family’s motto is, “You Can’t Do Business Sitting on Your Ass.”

The family work ethic can be traced back to 1913, when Irving and his brother Jack walked the streets of Lower East Side Manhattan selling raincoats door to door. When they expanded to leather jackets, they named their creation the “Perfecto,” after Irving’s favorite cigar. The company was eventually commissioned to make bomber jackets and wool pea coats for the U.S. military during World War II, but it was the years after the war, as a new youth rebellion started to emerge, that the company would become an icon.