The story behind the turtleneck – an excerpt from the Steve Jobs book

The Steve Jobs biography has been in the works for quite some time now. After Jobs passed away earlier this month, it was revealed that the release date for the book had been pushed up – it’ll now be available on October 24th. The book is grabbing quite a bit of attention for a number of things, not least of which is its wealth of information, anecdotes and interviews with the man behind all our favorite iGadgets.

Luckily for us, an excerpt has been making its way across the Internet and, I gotta say, if it’s any indication of how the rest of the book will read, I can’t wait to get my hands on it. The excerpt in question focuses on Jobs’ signature attire.

Steve Jobs’ black turtleneck, bluejeans and New Balance sneakers became almost as iconic as the devices he announced in the uniform. Finally, thanks to Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson, we now know just where Jobs’ fashion sense came from.

Check out the excerpt (via 9to5 Mac) below!

On a trip to Japan in the early 1980s, Jobs asked Sony’s chairman Akio Morita why everyone in the company’s factories wore uniforms. He told Jobs that after the war, no one had any clothes, and companies like Sony had to give their workers something to wear each day. Over the years, the uniforms developed their own signatures styles, especially at companies such as Sony, and it became a way of bonding workers to the company. “I decided that I wanted that type of bonding for Apple,” Jobs recalled.

Sony, with its appreciation for style, had gotten the famous designer Issey Miyake to create its uniform. It was a jacket made of rip-stop nylon with sleeves that could unzip to make it a vest. So Jobs called Issey Miyake and asked him to design a vest for Apple, Jobs recalled, “I came back with some samples and told everyone it would great if we would all wear these vests. Oh man, did I get booed off the stage. Everybody hated the idea.”

In the process, however, he became friends with Miyake and would visit him regularly. He also came to like the idea of having a uniform for himself, both because of its daily convenience (the rationale he claimed) and its ability to convey a signature style. “So I asked Issey to make me some of his black turtlenecks that I liked, and he made me like a hundred of them.” Jobs noticed my surprise when he told this story, so he showed them stacked up in the closet. “That’s what I wear,” he said. “I have enough to last for the rest of my life.”

I just pre-ordered my copy, what about you?

Via: 9to5 Mac (via Gawker)