My favourite vintage supplier, who always brings me the best items, brought this amazing military souvenir bomber jacket into the shop a few weeks ago, complete with USS Wabash ship cloth badge on the front.
It is now listed to the store.
These highly collectible sukajan jackets originated from a US serviceman after WWII getting his jacket embroidered as a souvenir and it became the done thing to do by many others as a souvenir of their tour of duty. The idea to get embroidered on the back symbols that represented something poignant to each serviceman or his regiment was duplicated by others and thus became popular as a souvenir to bring back home. Which is how this cult satin or rayon bomber jacket became popularly known as a 'souvenir jacket', or Souvenir Sukajan which refers to the largest naval base in the far East. Many are described with Tailor Toyo who was the 'go-to' tailor to get them made and is still producing to this day.
The black colour of the Vietnam jackets reflect how people felt about that was and during the 70s was adopted by counter culture and rock stars like Jagger who wore them.
- This genuine black Vietnam Souvenir Jacket is offered fresh to the market. The original owner served in the places indicted on the back in the 1970s, including; Vietnam, Japan, Hawaii, Philippines, Singapore and Hong King in 1973.
- It features an embroidered eagle with a US flag on the reverse.
- On the front is a Military badge reading; USS wabash AOR 5 which was a US replenishment ship captained by Robert P Chrisler in the Vietnam War and set off from Pearl Harbour. There is much more fascinating reading on Wiki'.