Collection: Jeff Hamilton

Jeff Hamilton was born in Morocco, grew up in Paris and moved to California at 24. Working in the Los Angeles garment district in 1983, he met Georges Marciano, one of the founders of Guess Jeans, and the friendship set the course of his early career. He is credited with popularising the NBA championship leather jacket, a style that ran through popular culture from the late eighties, through the nineties and into the early 2000s.

His jackets were made for Michael Jordan and the 1996 Chicago Bulls, and championship jackets followed for the Los Angeles Lakers of 2000 to 2002. When the NBA named its 50 Greatest Players at the 1997 All-Star Game, each honoree received a unique Hamilton leather jacket for the ceremony, and Hamilton designed the commemorative jackets again 25 years later for the 75th Anniversary Team.

This collection gathers the Jeff Hamilton pieces we hold: championship and team leather jackets, patchwork and varsity styles, racing jackets and numbered editions. In our handling, the questions that matter most are the label, the edition number where one exists, the leather and the condition of the patches. Our Jeff Hamilton collector's guide sets out how we read each of these.