PAUL D’ORLÉANS
THE ONE-PIECE, ZIP-UP LEATHER RACING SUIT has been the legal minimum standard for protective competition gear for over 60 years, but the question of who invented it has long been subject to debate.
Movie star-handsome Geoff Duke made the outfit famous in 1951, racing and winning for Norton after his local tailor, Frank Barker, sewed one up to Duke’s instruction. He’d already been wearing a one-piece fabric undergarment beneath his two-piece leathers, made up by a ballet specialist in London, which caused a few ‘ribald comments’
