It might not seem like a big deal to the uninitiated, but getting the motorcycle club clobber right in Sons Of Anarchy was a pretty big deal. Costume designers don't get nearly as much praise as they should be for such things, as the design of SAMCRO's uniforms has had just as much attention paid to it as a historical epic or period drama, which usually entails leafing through endless amounts of materials and first-hand research as to what they'd actually look like in real life. Sons Of Anarchy is no different, as the leathers and denim the gang clad themselves in is pretty much what an actual biker gang would wear. Obviously we all know that the stereotypical figure of a biker involves lots of leather jackets and the like, but it's the smaller touches that really sells SAMCRO as an honest-to-goodness 1% group (a name which comes, FYI, from the AMA's assertion that 99% of motorcyclists were law-abiding citizens; the remaining percent are outlaws): the colours, the number of patches which identify how involved with a gang you are, the denim vests, even the tattoos that tell a story or show rank to a specific club. All appear in Sons Of Anarchy, all are what real bikers have.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
