Leather Guards T-shirt

The most enduring of Tom's works are his drawings of bikers and leathermen. Inspired by Marlon Brando in ‘The Wild Ones’ (1953), the artist combined leather-clad bikers with his fetish for police and army uniforms, establishing an iconic gay look. Adopting the tight jeans, caps, and boots of working and military men as part of his aesthetic, the artist appropriated signifiers of class and machismo as symbols of sexuality itself. His images of bikers clad in leather chaps and uniformed cops both inspired and drew from nascent leather and muscle scenes, later influencing figures such as Freddie Mercury, Jean Paul Gaultier and Robert Mapplethorpe. Unabashedly pornographic, Tom of Finland’s “dirty drawings” were previously characterised as erotica, primarily finding institutional recognition after his death. However, his masterfully rendered images of gay men were revolutionary at a time when homosexuality was still considered a crime – offering affirmation and transgressing prevalent tropes of masculinity.