I just happened to be in the right place at the right time, with the right image.” After winning a host of local competitions and titles, Brookes was cajoled by friends and the Star’s founder, Michael Glynn, into jetting to Chicago to take part in the second-ever International Mr Leather competition. “Everybody has a different fantasy, so that produces a different image.
Do they live and go to work in leather? To me, it’s just an image of a particular fantasy,” Brookes told Sydney Star Observer from the inner-west home he designed and built. “I don’t really understand people who say their lifestyle is ‘being a leatherman’. Patrick Brookes’ still unmatched success as the only Australian to win the International Mr Leather Competition, in Chicago in 1980, may present a challenge or represent an aspiration for current members of the leather scene, but for the somewhat shy architect who donned that sash, it was nothing more than fun and fantasy.
Thirty years ago this May, an Aussie leatherman conquered the USA.
