Browsing the House and Home section this morning (Cuttings is the lead???) we came across this short piece by our bff Stephen Treffinger, entitled Leather Interiors. Which got our antenna up. Which grew even more when we saw the question.

I'm seeing leather everywhere this fall. How much is too much?

We've been noticing a trend towards the saucy in the Q&A column (remember the mismatched couple?) and this is no different. Treffinger's response:

When trying to gauge excess, look at the ensemble as if it were being worn by a friend. Barring fetishes (and I make no judgments), an entire leather outfit is, generally speaking, a misstep.

Which brings us, naturally, to Judas Priest.

We spent yesterday evening in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Written on our bootleg concertwear as Birdgeport. We were there for Judas Priest. And they, let us tell you, wear an excess of leather. We, being both always on the job and with a fellow reporter, were intrigued by the concertgoers' styles and general milieu. Which can be broken down into this:

Momjeans, studded belt, racktasticity.
Dadjeans, studded belt, tucked-in mid-eighties Priest t-shirt.

Generally we found Judas Priest's graphic (there we go) identity to be at direct odds with the band's actual identity. The cover of the Angel of Retribution album is really really scary. With this metal-covered angel and it's all dark and it brought us back to that time we wrote poetry that went something like "the world sucks/it sucks/we like black nail polish".

And then the guitarist comes out in a muffin-top-showing cap-sleeve t-shirt. He was old, but we the most wanted him to be our bf. Treffinger, quoted completely out of context, agrees:

Signs of aging seem to reveal character, not flaws, and variations in color and texture are part of the appeal.

So. Leather = Judas Priest = aging rockers = leather = House & Home.