North Beach Leather was never a house with the designer tucked out of sight. Michael Hoban opened it in 1967 in the San Francisco district that gave it its name, selling three garments: leather jeans, a Levi's-style jacket, and a double-breasted Edwardian coat that, as he later told the Los Angeles Times, "it seemed like everybody in the world wanted." Hells Angels bought first, then Huey Newton, then the Fillmore crowd once Bill Graham started sending his acts round. From 1969 Hoban was cutting custom white leather for Elvis. By 1988 UPI found ten stores and $25 million in wholesale volume behind him.

Then the 8-Ball jacket, dated fall 1989 in the Museum at FIT's collection. Salt-N-Pepa carried it into hip-hop, and within two years cheap copies of North Beach's jacket graphics were everywhere. Hoban sued. Eight manufacturers settled out of court by 1992.

Which is roughly the confidence on display in the 1993 campaign, where he stands dead centre in his own advert, grey and grinning in a black jacket with an Old English B, Daniela Peštová on his left in blocked red and cream, Yasmeen Ghauri on his right in navy. Two of the most bookable faces of the year, hired to flank the man who cut the clothes.

The ending was slower than the rise. SFGate reported the luxury trade falling away after September 2001; by July 2003 North Beach had filed general assignment, closed New York, Las Vegas, Houston and Chicago, and kept only the Grant Avenue shop. Hoban lost the business and moved to Hawaii. Skip Pas, his general manager, took the licence and the name.

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