Hide Bound

Henry Duarte recalls a childhood spent sitting on his bed gazing at album covers. With no MTV, the Torrance native fantasized about the hip-hugging gyrations of the rockers emoting on his stereo. “I’d be listening to Robert Plant, imagining this guy in these really tight jeans, a shirt halfway out but unbuttoned,” he says. As Duarte discovered at his first rock concert in the sixth grade, his fantasies were on target.

“Back then, you didn’t look like the audience,” he says. “You looked like a rock star.”

And in April, when Duarte opens a boutique on the Sunset Strip, anybody can. What you can’t get is the personal wardrobe the 33-year-old designer conceived for Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell, or the leather kilt Axl Rose wore at the Freddie Mercury tribute, or the gown--yes, gown--dreamed up for Lenny Kravitz to flaunt in his “Are You Gonna Go My Way” video, which has gone its way to the Las Vegas Hard Rock Cafe museum. But a would-be Sheryl Crow can drop by and, for $1,600, get fitted for Duarte’s signature custom-made rawhide leather pants, just like the ones he shaped to hug the backsides of Jimmy Page, Steven Tyler and Melissa Etheridge.

With hand-trussed flair legs, smartly tooled belt loops and crotch lacework, Duarte’s cow- or deerskin pants are homages to those made famous by Jim Morrison and Gram Parsons in the ‘60s. “My whole fashion is driven from music,” says Duarte, who, with his pompadour and wide-track sideburns, radiates rock-star-ish charisma himself.

From the first pair of leather pants he made for Kravitz, in 1991, Duarte built a loyal clientele in the record industry by word of mouth. “I received a check from Michael Hutchence right after he died,” Duarte says, suddenly quiet, recalling the INXS lead singer who committed suicide last year. “All of the last photos of Michael, he’s in my clothes.”

Duarte studied at the Fashion Institute and the old Otis Parsons and began designing menswear at 22, sewing up suits for Bobby Brown and Vanilla Ice and vests for New Kids on the Block. In 1992, he won the fashion industry’s Woolmark Cutting Edge Award. Now, in the studio of his gothic Hollywood Hills home, Duarte shows off some black deerskin pants he’s making for two CAA agents--perhaps his 1,000th and 1,001st pairs. So is he burning out on leather?

“Chanel had her one jacket,” Duarte declares. “This is my pant.”