Avery Trufelman

Patricia changed the buttons and added suede patches.

Okay, they couldn't find those exact jackets that Mel found in Australia, but they did the best they could in California.

They found a local dealer who was offloading 500 Spanish military paratrooper shirts.

Which makes sense when you think about it.

Franco had just died in 1975.

Spain was getting rid of surplus from the last regime.

Mel and Patricia bought all 500 shirts.

And they sold these shirts at the Sausalito flea market.

It was just little touches of style.

But these flourishes were all Patricia and Mel needed to stand out.

In 1978, Patricia and Mel set up a tiny shop in Mill Valley.

There were a number of boutiques like this.

There was Commander Salamander in D.C., the cockpit in New York, Camp Beverly Hills in L.A., all who stalked, recut, re-dyed, zhooshed up military surplus.

It was such a phenomenon that it was actually spoofed on Saturday Night Live.

As Charles McFarlane put it to me, the students who were wearing field jackets in the 1960s grew up.

They cut their hair.

They got jobs.

They became conventional bourgeoisie.

But they kept their Grateful Dead records and their penchant for surplus field jackets.

Yes.