The AN6552 was adopted by the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps between 1944 and 1947. It is made from carefully selected thick goatskin, tanned with vegetable tannins and hand-rubbed with wax after dyeing. This goatskin has a unique, tactile feel and a rugged grain that develops a distinctive character with wear.

WILLIAM GIBSON COLLECTION

Early in 2003, best-selling novelist William Gibson released a groundbreaking new book, “PATTERN RECOGNITION”. This absorbing and masterfully crafted novel is set in the period immediately following “9-11”, featuring a high-tech., super-hip, cyber-chic, anti-fashion sophisticate, Cayce Pollard, as the heroine. Brilliantly woven within the many pages of cutting-edge prose Mr. Gibson has crafted is the one object more valued by Cayce Pollard than any other her Black Buzz Rickson’s MA-1 Flying Jacket. William Gibson is an author of superior talent and exceptional good taste. Vintage clothing represents an area of personal interest to him, especially wristwatches, US flying jackets and jeans. He is a great admirer of the goods produced by Buzz Rickson’s, which is what provided the inspiration for the fictionalized Buzz Rickson’s black MA-1 jacket worn by his central character, Cayce Pollard, in his novel. In the course of writing his novel, Mr.Gibson was aware that no MA-1 jackets were ever produced for the USAF in black but he decided to make the color of Cayce's jacket black, not Sage Green, which is the original color of the MA-1,because Cayce's jacket needed to be black in the creative vision of Mr.Gibson. Today, Buzz Rickson's is proud to introduce the all new William Gibson Collection of Classic Military Jacket Styles produced exclusively in BLACK.