All the Leather Jacket that's Fit

Wanting to be at ease with yourself means you have to learn how to enjoy an effortless effort.  

As Spinoza said, perhaps with prescience for the experience of wearing a fine leather jacket, “All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.”  Fine things also tell good stories.  So let’s roll the tape.

I’ve always been keen on leather jackets ‘cause where I grew up you got beat up a lot whether or not you were cool.  So you might as well be cool.  My first real jacket was a Schott Perfecto that I, umm, stole from my elder brother.  He had mistakenly left it behind at home while he was having a Born to Run episode in the summer of ’75.  I ran off with it and forever pretended that I didn’t know what happened to the thing.

Ironically, such said perfection was stolen from me in a bar not long afterwards and this might be the first time I publicly admit to having stolen from my own brother one of his prized possessions.  We’re all still running it seems.  But I say now in the brazen confidence of my twilight years that I was born to wear leather and that I’m still running.  Maybe not quite as fast but maybe fit better.  If you wear leather you need the added benefit of feeling some brazen confidence even if it is wholly unwarranted.

 

I’m particularly fond of leather flying and riding jackets.  I have this no longer long term plan to build a biplane and fly it into my barn when the time comes---an idea I stole from a movie about old men with good stories.  My wife might appreciate this too since she’s a professional artist and, as final performances go, this could serve at least two good purposes---my uncomplicated demise (don’t we all want one of those?) and a biplane half-sticking out of the barn window, which would be, you know, art.

My favorite flying style jackets are predictable but that is an important point about leather jackets: you can wear a predictable style and it’s never a cliché.  No matter if you are accent acute or grave.  You’ll figure it out.

 

I like the old A-1s ‘cause looking like Eddie Rickenbacker or the Red Baron means you can also wear breeches and boots to your knees.  Now that’s brazen and it’s going to be another story.  It’s cold up there even in the friendly skies and it’s cool down here if you can manage it.  But with the traditional buttons and the short cut of the A-1 you don’t have to take off your jacket once you land the plane.  Well, if you land the plane.  You had fewer than 60 hours left to live if you were flying missions in 1918 but von Richtofen lasted nearly three years and Rickenbacker actually survived the war into old age.  I wonder what the patina looked like on his jacket after all those years.  Does anyone out there know what happened to Eddie’s jacket? Dave? Dave knows everything about jackets.

 

My own version of the A-1 is a custom rig from the inimitable Himel Bros.  My first was in black and unlined ‘cause that was my variation on the theme that seemed to both to honor tradition and move it along.  But then I had to have a second brown one, also in horsehide, when it’s the sort of thing you know matters as much as anything you own.

When I was getting my first Covid vaccine the lovely woman administering the jab said to me, “I love the way your jacket smells.”    Honest to goodness.  And then she added, “It looks smart too.”  I thought she was particularly smart to experience the jacket’s synesthetic charms.  Every sense is involved when you experience the Himel and I mean that in a good way.  Truth is, when something is as beautifully made and as elegant as the Himel Excelsior, pretty reminiscent of an A-1 and much like their more innovative Heron, no one can help but notice.  You feel luckier than Rickenbacker but that wouldn’t actually be true since, well, he flew those planes in that war and landed them alive.

 

I have yet another A-1, this one a true Cossack---shall we investigate that reference someday soon?  And it too is unlined and from Ooe Yofukuten and no one in the world makes anything better than everything Ooe makes.  Their work is hard to get but if you stalk Standard & Strange you might sing with Mick and get what you need.  

 

The A-2 is my second favorite flier and I know exactly which one I want. I’m holding out just a little bit on an A-2 because there still have to be a few things you reallyreally want in life that you don’t yet have yet.  This will remind you that the Buddha taught us that desire is the cause of suffering but that in this case suffering feels good. He might not agree but I’m going with this interpretation not only on the basis of skillful means but because it’s true.

 

The Real McCoy’s A-2 will honor tradition and innovation.  They sometimes make a choice to replicate or move things along.  I think their solution is to make more than one A-2.  Some versions truly make you want to watch black and white episodes of Twelve O’Clock High ‘cause they are perfect replicas and why mess with perfection?

There are at least two others that innovate tradition---the Canyon with an unbelievably cool red dyed trim that warrants drool buckets and further explanations and a Camo parachute lining version that manages to be both ultra-traditional (because the lining is a surplus material) and adds their own flavours.  I won’t linger here on the A-2 until I decide which one to chase.  Right now it’s a dogfight over the Channel and I’m still in the game.

 

I’m in the meantime still putting hours into an old Navy G-1, mine with a still wholly intact fur collar that shows no signs of distress even though it is far more than 25 years old.   Have you ever noticed that the Navy manages not only a willingness to go out on the high seas but will take the sartorial dare?

 

I just scored what I think is also my last peacoat, again from The Real McCoy’s, and that is a style I have worn since I was literally 5 years old---and I will show the pictures to make the comparison later between 5 year old me and about 60 years later.  Let’s stay for now with fliers and savor a few aspirations. 

 

The key to an A-2, as I see it, is to make sure you don’t look like you fly for United unless of course you do fly for United.  You want to pull off the pilot but avoid the cosplay.   We’re all pretenders and I know no accomplished person without at least some Imposter Syndrome.  All fine lines can be broached but let us not be egregious in our tastes.

 

The good news?  The A-2 is close to the perfect leather jacket because it doesn’t usually come across as made for its original purpose.  To wit, you are not mistaken for a pilot just because you are wearing the quintessential flyer’s rig.  This might be because so many were worn after the Second War that they are normalized.  It could also be that the usual preferred fit is like much of the original era’s look: not so slim as to draw too much attention.  YMMV.   The relatively open fit of the best A-2 gives you plenty of fit options.  A rider’s jacket is not so generous in this important respect.

 

When you wear a rider be it a single rider, including a cafè (n.b., accent aigu, mon cher) racer like a J-21, or a double-rider like the J-24 style, you can’t help but be noticed and asked The Question. “Do you ride a bike?”  The question sort of corners you into “yes” because why would you wear a rider if you weren’t a rider?

 

Well I used to ride a moto bike but my death wish now extends only as far as flying the biplane into the barn.  My family prohibits this passion because I am not competent enough to prevent myself from a fatal mistake.  (I have already had too many close encounters of the asphalt kind.)  Family still permits my lugged steel road bicycle out for a spin but who wears their leather jacket on a bicycle?  I kept the jacket and sold the motorcycle---that being the compromise upon which we could all agree.  Well, maybe not wholly agree since when does one agree with family?

 

I have (at least) two rider jackets (that I will admit to) but I write to make some important (maybe) points about fit.  The first point isn’t about strictly about fit, it’s about the look.  But fit and look make for a difference and a distinction that can’t be separated.

 

Since Brando was Johnny and the Boss leaned on Clarence, it’s cool to wear a J-24 style so long as you are prepared to deal with The Question.  Carry on.  You can deal with it because there is nothing on the planet short of tall engineer boots and perfect denim as cool as a J-24.  There.  I said it.  When the house burns down and there is one jacket to grab, this is the one.   I remember seeing the cover of Born to Run that august August afternoon and though it was the dead of summer I immediately went a’searchin’ for my bro’s Schott, put it on, and never let it go.  Until it was stolen a few months later. 

 

I’ve finally replaced this memory of the J-24 with a new J-24 but this time from The Real McCoys’s who, like they always do, make tradition and quality an obsession you get behind.  There are other makers, particularly Japanese, who are on to what we might call the Perfecto Look---like The Flat Head, Fine Creek Leathers, and Y’2---and they are all very commendable.  It’s no zero sum and there are great ones to be had.  I’m not here to recommend one brand over another but to talk fit.  To get in front of the kind of J-24 you can get behind like the RMC J-24 you are going to need expert advice.   That would not be me.  That’s my first point.

 

You can of course get fit in person but if you are like me you might never get to such a retailer in person.  Between Covid and living in the boonie dock end of the Boonies, I am going to have to use the interwebs and ask people who know what they are doing.

That would be the folks at Standard & Strange who suffer my endless questions, pauses to reflect, hesitations, and far less commendable bouts of insouciance and ennui (no accent).  Patience is not a virtue so much as it is something we need to have virtue.  The good folks at S&S are not only patient but virtuous because they would rather not sell you the jacket than fit you improperly.  I don’t work for S&S and I paid retail---I’m just tellin’ ya’ that they have got the goods when it comes to knowing how to fit you.  Others sell The Real McCoy’s J-24 and may offer real advice, I mean more than “it fits true to size” (wtftm) but, honestly, get it from S&S and let fit anxiety go the way of 8-Track and Beta.

But how will you know you are properly fit?

The fit on the J-24 should not (I use the normative form should with some reservations on principle) be so tight  that you are immovable, as if you are being committed to the Cukoo’s Nest.  Fly over that one.  

The J-24 with its D-pocket and other accents acute and grave in the pocket department, like the brilliant handpocketless and nearpocketless J-21, should fit trim, tight but not stiff.   So what’s the difference?  Or how do you tell the difference?

Again, if you are not fit in person then listen to what Gen or Neil or Mari or the Real Professionals at S&S say when they answer your (two dozen in the middle fo the night) emails.

But even if you are Interwebs Fit here you still want to know that your J-24 or J-21 meets the proper flex.  So look for two more tells.

 

First, stand up and extend your arms forward as if you are reaching for the bars on a motobike.  Not ape bars but more like right-in-front-of-you Café Racer bars and as you extend your arms also bend slightly as if you are leaning into the bike to grab the bars.  Relax too.  You should never grab your bars.   Now, does the jacket ride up on you?

If it does a little then that’s fine because it is supposed to move with you.  You move and the jacket, which should fit more like a shirt, will bend and twist, shuck and jive with you as you lean into your goodself.  You move, the jacket complies as if it is not making the decision for you.  This is the crucial bit.  When the jacket is deciding, it’s the wrong fit because you are moving to adjust to the jacket.  This is subtle but real.  Do this several times.  Don’t get caught in the mirror unless you can handle the emotional liabilities.

Next, sit down on the couch wearing your J-24 or J-21.  While this may be blasphemy let it be said that I often wear these jackets inside our chill house in the winter because when they warm up to your body, they are cozy.  Is there a better feeling than the word “cozy”?  

Okay, so you are sitting on your couch wearing a leather riding jacket, got that?  Now schlump down some and use some bad posture to get even more comfortable.  Does the jacket move with you or does it make you want to sit up like a Continental soldier?  Do you feel like you could sit like this and more or less not notice you are wearing your rider?  This can take some time because the more you do this, the more the rider will become the shape of you.  This is another reason to wear it even when sitting on the couch.  Horsehide does not stretch but rather conforms to you, becomes you.  If you are conforming to it, it’s likely too small.

 

The key here is that the jacket is not making you want to sit upright nor is it causing you to adjust to its directives.  You’ll not be comfortable sitting schlumpy for too long (well I hope not) but you will not be being told by the jacket  how you should be sitting.  The jacket moves with you and eventually becomes you. You’re in.  It’s like The Matrix, only better.

One last thing.  When you stand up from the Schlumpy Couch Test or stand up straight again after you bend over your imaginary café racer bike with your arms extended, you might have to pull down the jacket slightly at the hem to rearrange the fit.  If you have to pull hard and it seems like the jacket was really riding up, then it’s either too small or it still needs break-in.  Don’t be hasty, the latter could be true.

You will remember that even Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation was often seen pulling down the hem of his sleek-fitting uniform.  You may not be as cool as Jean-Luc Picard and certainly not Patrick Stewart, but this is an important move.

 

A little readjustment tug to get your rider back into place is not a bad thing.  If the jacket moved too much without you then it will require too much of you to put it to rights.  So adjust back to a trim fitting shirt feel and you’re not making the fitting mistake of too small.

 

These rider jackets fit snug even when they are well-worn and it strikes me as normal to have to pull yourself together even though you always want to feel like that should be effortless.

It’s never really effortless to have your life together.  It’s more like an effortless effort.  If you’ve come this far reading, let’s leave it at that and allow me to say thanks for the effort.