Getty Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and President-elect Joe Biden.
Celebrity leather designer Jeff Hamilton has created his custom designs for many famous people, including Madonna, Michael Jordan, Drake, LeBron James and former U.S. President Bill Clinton.
Now he has his sights set on creating his signature jackets for President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, he told Heavy in a recent interview.
Biden’s Jacket Won’t Be as ‘Crazy & Nuts’ as Much of Hamilton’s Work
Hamilton said he’s excited about his next task of designing a jacket for Biden. “Now I cannot go as crazy and nuts that I would have liked to, like on my Championship jackets for LeBron or one of the music stars,” he revealed.
“But, it’s kind of going to be a very simple jacket having the BEST craftsmanship. I mean, I sign every jacket on the inside and I usually put a message on the inside like a limited edition plaque, and I just put my feelings in there or how I feel about that person.”
Hamilton thinks Biden has the swag to pull off the look in one of his signature jackets.
“I think he has it,” he said. “He’s been around long enough that even though people say that he’s a little old but still, he’s very young at heart and he has that personality that he knows how to carry himself very well and I’m very excited to have him as the next president.”
Hamilton also wants to create a leather jacket for Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.
“Oh absolutely,” he said. “I WILL be doing one for her. Of course I will be doing something special for her. Howard University! So I would probably be doing that and most likely I try to be more conservative; when you deal at that level, it can’t be anything too funky. So I think something navy as the background and whatever logo that I have. … I also did jackets for Vice President Al Gore as well and it was also something very subtle.”
Hamilton Says He Still Has an Original Bill Clinton Presidential Jacket
Hamilton detailed how he created a special look for former President Bill Clinton.
“I did a lot of jackets for the Secret Service and I became close friends with some of the guys from the Secret Service way back then and I’m still friends with them,” Hamilton told Heavy Live With Scoop B.
“… I’m still very close with them and we’re still good friends and I said to them, ‘I would love to meet President Clinton.’ And again, being an immigrant and being able to meet the most powerful man in the world you know, was something special. So I made a Presidential Seal jacket with the navy Presidential Seal and I was in Los Angeles and they arranged for me to meet with and present the jacket to him.
“At the time email was not as strong as it is now and artwork wasn’t exchanged the same way; so what they did was they gave me one of those magnets that they put on the car – like the ones that they put on the official presidential cars. So they gave one of those and I duplicated the logo and created the seal on that. After that, I met Bill Clinton and I had dinner with him and I made some other jackets for him and some other projects,” Hamilton told Heavy.
“Now usually when picking out the jacket and getting the design, usually it’s a very close friend of his that wants to bring him a present or something. On the first jacket, I picked the design from A to Z and it was very easy to do; very luxurious, the best navy leather with the small seal on the front and the big seal in the back, which was smart because I made two jackets like that. Every time I make a jacket for a big celebrity or one of our icons of our time, I make two jackets. I give them the first jacket and I keep the other jacket for myself and most of the time the second jacket will get signed by that person so I own one of the original Bill Clinton presidential jackets.”
Hamilton said Clinton received the finished product well. “He loved it,” he said.
“Everybody’s used to the varsity jacket; like a wool jacket with the embroidering, but this is the hand cut leather all hand-pieced together and every time I run into him since he’s been out of office for some time now, he always remembers those jackets.”
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