Today we want to talk about Fight Club – a cult, now iconic movie and an absolute favourite of ours for many reasons: there’s a screwed up hero...no, make that two screwed up heroes, an alternate heroine, cool fashion, a coming of dawn, a movie that flips our aspirations (albeit in a rather extreme manner), throws in some mind bending provocation, and then (spoiler alert) two heroes actually become one hero! We haven’t even started to talk about the beauty of the leather jackets in this movie and perhaps, what may be, the true reason for our minor obsession about this film!
Let’s start by telling you about this movie – and apologies to those who have yet to see the film: we have tried to leave out as many spoilers as possible here! You have been forewarned.
Fight Club is a film based on the 1996 novel by Chuck Palahniuck. It was directed by David Fincher, who previously directed the movie Seven and The Game. More recently, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Gone Girl. So, a man with impressive credentials. Fight Club starred some of the more eclectic and hugely talented Hollywood stars at the time with Edward Norton and Helena Bonham Carter leading the way. Brad Pitt also starred in the movie (less eclectic, more mainstream) but he was actually incredibly well cast as the provocative protagonist Tyler Durden. A short synopsis would be: A depressed man, The Narrator (Edward Norton), unfulfilled by his corporate job, worldly possessions and life in general, develops severe insomnia. Apparently, the only thing that helps ease his insomnia, is going to support groups in which he pretends to have the afflictions the group are trying to have group therapy for. So, he attends rather interesting, emotionally charged, therapy groups for testicular cancer, brain parasites, sickle-cell anaemia to name a few. It’s here that he notices another trespasser to the groups, in the form of the beautiful, mysterious, Marla Singer (Bonham Carter). Our Narrator is enraged that she is taking his calmful bliss away and again is unable to sleep. After negotiating with each other and splitting the groups, they go their separate ways again but not before the girl gives the boy her number. Fast forward – The Narrator meets an intriguing soap (yes soap) salesman called Tyler Durden (enter Brad Pitt) and finds himself living with Tyler, when his on-paper perfect apartment is burnt down along with everything he owns in the world. Yup - the literal, metaphorical burning of materialism and consumerism. You can watch this film for just the surface message and the psychological thriller aspect or for the dark satire that it is, with the political and social messages it tries to convey. Your choice.
Yes, the Tyler Durden style is a huge talking point at Soul Revolver. But the movie is close to our hearts for more than just that. This is a film that was released almost 20 years ago now, yet the message it imparts is startingly relevant even today. A film that transcends through time is one that is a modern-day classic. There is so much talking point that we would need days and days to figure out, whether The Narrator based Tyler Durden on his perfect egotistical self, or whether Tyler was based solely on Marla Singer. Is Marla Singer even real? Or is she, like Tyler Durden an alter ego of The Narrator? Are Marla and Tyler two sides of The Narrator? Or is Marla in fact, real?
The Narrator feels an inexplicable kinship, meeting of souls, bromance with Tyler Durden, aka his imaginary friend, or more accurately, his alter ego. Freud hit the mark when he told us that ‘human personality is complex’ – it is indeed and that’s a huge component of this movie. The two guys (for simplicity’s sake let’s go with two), set up an underground club with fight club rules, and fight other bored and disillusioned men, forming a skewed brotherhood of sorts. What happens next is mesmerising and disturbing – no more spoilers.
But ironically, just as the film was trying to project an anti-consumerism message to the world, the world was busy falling in love with Tyler Durden’s clothing and image. So much so, that searches online show forums and sites dedicated to Tyler Durden’s style of clothing, to the extent that Tyler Durden clothing has almost become a brand of its own standing! Materialistic perhaps – but love is love.
This fixation with Tyler Durden’s clothing and style can be pinpointed to one particular scene - cue Tyler Durden talking about ‘the things you own, end up owning you’ in a beautiful deep red leather jacket. The jacket, not only did it look stylish, but it represented Tyler Durden himself. The jacket was the strut in Brad Pitt’s walk and the confidence in Tyler Durden’s talk - we would happily succumb to this jacket having total ownership of us. And so began our love affair, and we at Soul Revolver went about creating the most perfect, most detailed replica jacket that ever existed. Perfection, like this jacket, like this movie, deserved our utmost attention.
What came out of this was our Original Fight Club leather jacket. And in this jacket you are Jack’s envy. This leather jacket became our best-selling replica jacket. Handcrafted, this hip length leather jacket for men, is nothing short of the original. There have always been many versions of this jacket available to buy, but none are crafted to this meticulous level of detail and quality. Then to improve, on what was now a classic best-seller, we made the same jacket available in an antiqued leather finish; which is solely exclusive to Soul Revolver. This enriches the beautiful red leather colour, adding different depths of shade. Personally, we think it absolutely enhances the original Fight Club leather jacket.
Another leather jacket that Soul Revolver was inspired to make because of the movie was our Mayhem leather jacket. It’s our alternate reality version of the jacket Brad Pitt parades in, when the chaos inside The Narrator’s brain starts to explode outside. Our version features white leather accent stripes, shoulder panels and cuffs, all in our trademark Italian leather with the same love and attention to detail we gave to the original Fight Club jacket. It comes in two colours, Deep Red and Black. Just like Tyler Durden, we believe in individuality and the right to express it. And for the record, Soul Revolver came up with the ‘Mayhem’ jacket name – and now everyone follows. But, let it be known, we were first!
Q: So what did we learn from a movie that talks about the entrapments of worldly conventions and consumerism?
A: We learnt that its more effective to preach anti-materialistic, anti-consumerist ideas, when you’re dressed so damn well.
