Maybe there was some kind of ‘in joke’ that was going around amongst the Leppard boys with the union jacket strip – but I sure didn’t get it, and I’m from one of the colonies. It’s one thing to be patriotic, you know old boy, cup of tea and a cucumber sarnie and all that – but dressing head to toe in the union jack came across as a bit of overkill. Yet having said that, in around 82/83 Sheffield’s finest WERE trying to break into the US market (which they categorically achieved), and wearing this garb was as good as having a sign behind the band that said, “We are from Britain, we are NOT an American band”. Sometimes you had to spell things out for ‘em you know, as some of the folks from the US of A may have thought that the Sheffield accent was from one of them Johnny Reb states in the far south. Don’t get me wrong, I love Leppard, back in 84 I even used to have a Leppard wallet, but in the field of fashion they always used to make me chuckle. For these likeable limeys though it did get worse, for in the late 80s Phil Collen was donning a white naval officers jacket which was better suited to one of the ladies in Poison!
