Shropshire scooter fan who kits out the stars

Liam Gallagher, Kate Moss, Jude Law. When these "ace faces" want one of the most iconic items of clothing in British popular culture, they track down Shropshire man Kane Western.

Sharp-dressed Kane, a Lambretta-riding scooterist and member of Severnside Lions riding group, is Britain's leading importer and supplier of super-rare authentic US Army issue fishtail parkas.

"I was the first person to bring these into Europe," says the 34-year-old founder of fishtailparkas.com which sources original '50s and '60s parkas from the United States.

"If you are wearing a US military parka with fur round the collar it's likely that at some point it came from me."

He adds: "We are probably the biggest mod website for clothing in the world."

All this from modest office space on the banks of the River Severn in Shrewsbury, which from the outside looks like any other. Inside, however, the walls are adorned with paintings of The Who, Union Jacks and other Mod imagery. Against one are boxes and racks of green M1965 and M1951 parkas, some worth upwards of £1,000 and only gaining in value due to spiralling demand and the fact that production of the originals that first saw service in the Korean War has long since ceased.

Sales went through the roof when Kate Moss acquired one of Kane's pieces. Not that he knew she'd snapped one up at the time, in 2009.

"I got a phone call from someone at Storm model agency in London who said 'I want a parka in a small size and quickly, special delivery', like can you drive it down yourself.

"That month I did £14,000 worth of sales, and I did not know why. It was madness. Women were ringing me up left, right and centre, wanting a parka."

He later discovered that the world's most famous model had appeared in Vogue sporting one of his coats.

"A mate of mine told me the coat had been in, but couldn't remember the model's name. He said 'who's that model who snorted cocaine!?'"

In the business of selling the culturally iconic to cultural icons, inevitably there are twists in the (fish) tale.

In 2009, Kane was on a scooter ride-out to the Isle of Wight when his mobile phone rang. Down a crackly line, the voice at the other end muttered something about someone called Jude Law before poor reception made the exchange impossible.

"I said 'I'm in the Isle of Wight, can you call back Monday?' They called back and it was Denise Cronenberg. She said 'You might know my brother, David'.

"They wanted a parka for the film that Jude Law was in called Repo Men. I said, 'What size is he?'"

Word goes round. When the production company for the stage version of Quadrophenia went into pre-production, its wardobe department snapped up several of his parkas.

Although possibly not as glamorous as getting A-list celebrities to wear fishtail parkas, Kane was also asked to appear on BBC's Cash in the Attic "as a resident fishtail parka evaluer!"

"Somebody had found a parka in the attic and could I be their expert and price it up on the show?"

For Kane, his enthusiasm as a hobby collector of parkas and his background in computers collided in the creation of the perfect business - although global online dominance didn't look a particularly good bet way back in 2004 when his story began in a one-room flat with £200 to his name.

"I was always interested in in the Mod scene and kept my old parka," he says. "I wanted another one and they were just not around, but because I worked in computers and had contacts in the US I found, and bought, five. I kept one for myself and sold four.

"Then I bought ten more, sold some and stuck the others in a cupboard behind the toilet. Couldn't sell them. I was broke and thinking 'what am I going to do?'

"So over that weekend I built a website and sold eight in a week."

Coinciding at the time with a Mod revival spearheaded by the likes of Paul Weller and later when Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher wore one of his parkas in the video for Acquiesce, sales boomed.

"Now we supply to Mods in countries and places all over the world - Australia, Norway, Sweden, Hong Kong, Russia, Japan. There's not many countries I've not supplied to.

"Mods are very discerning, they want things to be exact and original and I am very particular about what kit I have. It has to be authentic US issue."

The beauty of the internet means fishtailparkas.com is now the number one supplier of iconic jackets to mods the world over - and at the same time the reason why it's likely that local folk will never have heard of it.

And to think that in 1998 when Kane was studying IT at Brunel University he wrote a thesis on the untapped global potential for selling goods on this thing called "the world wide web".

"The reaction was 'as if . . .' But it has changed the world for niche markets, whether it's Mod kit or Mongolian pottery."

At a time when many businesses are faltering and failing, interest in fishtail parkas is continuing to reach new heights, and so far this year Kane has already shifted some £100,000 worth of them.

"Christmas was ridiculous, we could not keep up with demand," explains Kane.

At the same time, there are only a limited number of authentic parkas in circulation, which although he gets tip-offs from trusted contacts around the world, means the items of clothing that started life in service to the US army in 1951 to help the American soldiers cope with the freezing conditions in the Korean War, are increasingly rare and hard to source.

"There is a limited stock and demand outstrips supply. They are collector's items and some rare ones can fetch £1,000 apiece."

Fifty years since the original fishtail parka was produced, the mod movement that made it its iconic emblem is now multi-generational and growing in population.

Not only is it talkin' bout my generation, but the one after that, and the one after that.

And they'll all be wanting to look the part, right?

For more information visit www.fishtailparkas.com