Aero Indy Jacket...Pics.

[JanSolo]

While browsing the offerings of the usual supects I found two pictures of Aero's Indy Jacket which the German dealer calls "1981 Indypendent".

The pics show it in Aero's older style oil-pull horsehide. I'm sure that it's available in various choices of leather. I'm not a huge fan of that jacket but I'm sure that Aero's Indy will be among (if not the best) Indy replicas on the market.

 

[nicholasb]

I think I've seen those pics before. Its interesting . It would be good to see some close up shots too. I can imagine the Aero leather would be a lot thicker than anything else offered at the moment. i don't mind the style and use my Wested as an all round jacket including summer. It would be a hard choice to go with design or just have a half belt with the A2 style pockets. Would like to see it in the seal goat maybe.

 

[Tony B]

There is three clickable pictures on here http://aeroleatherclothingjapan.com/gallery I cant figure out how to post the pics themselves ....they are the ones just after the girl in the red mini. Looks like FQHH so is as nice as an indi jacket gets.

I always liked the indi jacket....untill I bought one, I rang wested to ask if the hand warmers were proper cut throught the leather pockets or just a pouch under the cargo pockets and was told that they were just the area behind the cargo pocket and when I asked if it would be possible to get one made with proper lined cut through pockets they told me that that would mean repatterning the whole jacket and would add £300 on top of the cost of the jacket. = £469

Needless to say I went for the normal version, last crusade washed goat, and sure enough it had the pockets I asked for as standard but if I had been dumb enough to bite they would happily have stung me for nearly £500 FOR A STANDARD JACKET two years ago.

The jacket itself is just junk, the right sleave is alright but the left is baggy around the back of the shoulder , not a leather issue just a result of bad pattern cutting and sewing and the fact it was passed shows a total lack of quality control. I was away on holiday when the jacket turned up ...a result of them taking so long to post it out even though it was a stock item, the jacket was meant to be going with me when I went away.
If I had been there when the jacket turned up it would have been back to wested on day one but as I wasn't I was informed that I had missed the window for sending it back under the distance selling regulations but the woman did say that they would take it back to have a look at the issue with the left sleave "if I insisted" I didn't bother as having seen the quality of their work and lack of attention to detail I knew I could to a better job myself.

The problem with me doing it would be that I would have had to go for extra c**p weak thread more suitable for making a shirt with and would have to sew badly deliberately to get it to blend in with the rest of the jacket. The thing is now kept as a lesson in how not to put a garment together ie. wonkey seams, loops of thread in the middle of seems which seem to be a result of bad lower thread tension, skipped stitches(up to 3 at a time), seams where the stitches were locked on the surface rather than in the leather and seems wherE the thread must have either run out or broken halfway through and the seem was just restarted where they left off.

The leather is junk but it was a cheap jacket so that didn't suprise me too much , if I say carnaby street leather a lot of people will now what I mean, the lining is poly satin, fare enough but it seems to have been sewn together with a thicker thread than the leather therefore needing a thick needle which has lead the pulls in the lining. Like I said I didn't expect best quality leather for that price but the pattern cutting was done by a blind monkey and the thing seems to have been sewn together by someone who doesn't know one end of a sewing machine from the other which is totaly unacceptable for any price.

I could have argued the toss with wested as it is just a unusable peice of rubbish ,but when I realised what sort of people I was dealing with I couldn't be bothered as work is going alright these days I could afford to take the hit so I thought it would be better to keep as a reminder of what can go wrong when you deal with a mickey mouse company and I have managed to talk a couple of friends out of wasting money with wested by showing them this thing which gave me a nice warm feeling inside.

My next bought leather is going to cost between £600-700 and is going to come from Galasheilds and it will be a better bargain than any wested at any price for me. When I see people on forums buying one wested after another trying to get a good one the mind boggles...go to kentaurus in germany and get a wellmade one that will last a lifetime...job done

All I can give is a personal opinion from my experience with wested and am not stating anything other than that but all I had was appaling customer service, someone thrying to screw hundreds extra out of me for what would it turned out be a standard jacket and very poorly put together jacket using the cheapest materials possible. Caveat emptor could have been invented for these people.

Regards Tony

 

[Edward]

The Aero Indy looks nice. I don't doubt that it'll be a fantastic jacket. For the money, I'd much rather a halfbelt, but that's to personal taste. I did buy a used (barely worn) Wested in goat for very little. Can't speak to Wested's customer service on the jackets (I did buy some trousers from them years ago with no problems), but I'm very pleased with the one I got. Comparing it to my Aero goats (an AN6552 and an A2), it is much lighter, though still plenty durable for day to day wear (we're not talking the sort of thing you can tear like paper, as some lambskin jackets I have seen from many different manufacturers). Fits a gap in my wardrobe - I wanted a lighter leather jacket I could wear when a jacket is called for in Summer, and I had fancied owning an Indy for some tie, but didn't want to spend big money on it. If I wanted an Indy jacket that I would be wearing all the time, as a main jacket, I'd probably pony up the extra for an Aero. Interesting to actually see photos of one, as I heard the rumour some time ago that they were planning to do one, but this is the first I've "seen".

 

[nicholasb]

I must have been lucky with my Wested. I bought a standard off the rack in 2007 and it fit like a dream and appears to be well made. It was posted to me very quickly. I got it for £130 new and consider it a bargain. The leather is not as lovely as the aero but it is light weight without being weak. It was outsourced at that time. I believe Wested now make all the Indy jackets in house. I wouldn't wear the Wested on a very cold day. The Aero horsehide/alpaca is better for that but I think it has its place.

The Aero version looks great but I agree with Edward that i would probably go for a halfbelt and maybe adapt it.

 

[Tony B]

Must admit apart from the quality issues I already mentioned (ranted about) I wouldn't have an indy jacket again of any type.

Not a issue with any particular company it is just the jacket design didn't work for me as I hoped it would, I have always liked the look of the indie jacket and got one because I just dont like knits on a jacket so didn't want an A2 and the indie jacket seemed to fit the bill. But once I put it on it didn't make much sence, the expansion pleats are right down the rib cage where you dont need them but end about an inch below where you would need them just behind the shoulder.Like I said I like the way they look but it just didn't do it for me.

Very soon after getting mine I started ebaying for a new brown leather jacket and found one that seemed to tick all the boxes but the bloke had it advertised as a suede flyers leather jacket ...dread to think what search terms I had put in...I managed to get it for £31 and when the box turned up ,£4 postage as he couldn't figure out how to add more postage, this massivly heavy stiff uncomfortable thing came out of the box and it was too long to be a proper leather jacket, had a label from some company called aeroleather co....never heard of em.

After a bit of nosing round the net I discovered I had an almost brand new long half belt in FQHH and that is when I found this place. I still didn't like the length for the first couple of months but now if I had the option of this or a "normal" leangth halfbelt this would get my vote every time....too much gut for short leather jackets nowadays. Another one which I got of ebay which needs a bit of work doing on it is a Ralph Lauren long halfbelt in smoke roughside out deerskin, it's gorgeous stuff but the jacket is unlined and the previous owner used a hanger too narrow so the front of the shoulder has stretched and bagged but overall a nice jacket for £56 . If I can ever justify it to myself I will get aero to make me one of these someday but the thing does absorb any dirt with in a 10 yard radius so it would get very little use. the reason that i mention this is that the seller was trying to sell this as an indie jacket, some people do have some strange ideas.

 

[Edward]

Jinkies, that has the be the deal of the century on an Aero!!

 

[Tony B]

Yep, and like I said I'd never heard of em at the time so I was at the point of getting rid of it not long after getting it as I didn't think the length was right for a leather jacket...I was also measuring it up with a view to getting the scissors out and giving it a chop across the middle and taking it up a couple of inches to turn it into a "proper" leather jacket thank god I didn't.

The deerskin jacket is actually a better result on a purely financial basis.

I had seen the same model of jacket at an RL outlet in florida in 03 reduced to $900 but I had some vitally important fishing gear to buy at the time so didn't shell out. Again glad I didn't as the jacket was really never worth the price and the stuff is a pain in the neck as you have to be paranoid about what you do, what you touch etc. when wearing it but deerskin is a lot nicer to wear than any other leather I have, but it is also the most delicate if you want to keep it looking good and with the way I treat clothes it sort of takes the joy out of it.

 

[nicholasb]

Wow £35 for an Aero

 

[Navin323i]

Nice Indy jacket! Hope you've been doing well, Jan.

 

[Tony B]

I am not holding my breath for another result like that but you never know, at the weekend I was on ebay looking for leather hide and someone listed an older sam walker barnstormer ,so it might be one of the aero ones, fantastic condition like the fella had bought it regreted it and stuck it in the wardrobe. It was black almost new looking leather cant remember if it was geegee skin or cow and had alpaca lining.

It was on for an hour at most with a buy it now price of £75 before some lucky punter snapped up a lot of coat for the coming winter....if it was my size the listing would have been over about 2 mins after it started.

 

[Tadite]

I dig the Aero. It's a clear classic look and with the D pockets it's a step above casual. Thing I've never liked about the A-2 was the darn storm cuffs. I hate them with the passion of the burning suns. So the Indy is attractive because it has many of the nicer parts of the A-2 without the downsides. Heck, it's even in the type of horsehide I'd like on my next jacket.

Man if I'd seen that on Ebay! God... when I think of the amount of Aeros/Lost Worlds/Eastmens/and Goodwear that must have been sold without any knowledge of their quality.... Just breaks my heart and fills it with jealousy!

 

[ButteMT61]

^^ I agree on the storm cuffs on all jackets. I wear daily big watches, and they don't go well with those cuffs. I'm sure I'll have to replace them prematurely due to this. Sometimes, I actually take my watch off before donning/doffing an A2/G1.

 

[Seb Lucas]

While browsing the offerings of the usual supects I found two pictures of Aero's Indy Jacket which the German dealer calls "1981 Indypendent".

The pics show it in Aero's older style oil-pull horsehide. I'm sure that it's available in various choices of leather. I'm not a huge fan of that jacket but I'm sure that Aero's Indy will be among (if not the best) Indy replicas on the market.

Looks okay. Not as accurate as a Tony Nowak Raiders - he had a film jacket to pattern from. The back on this Aero has a yolk that is a bit low for a Raiders jacket, the pocket flaps are not quite right and the pockets seem small, but it's an impressively strong looking item.

My problem with Aero doing them is that teh point of a Raiders Indy jacket (as far as most fans go and I'm kind of in there) is it's a light piece of costume leather, like a windbreaker. Aero is most likely too heavy unless they use some of thier great cape skin, or a 2oz goat. But hell, it's only opinion so who really cares?

 

[Edward]

My problem with Aero doing them is that teh point of a Raiders Indy jacket (as far as most fans go and I'm kind of in there) is it's a light piece of costume leather, like a windbreaker. Aero is most likely too heavy unless they use some of thier great cape skin, or a 2oz goat. But hell, it's only opinion so who really cares?

The Aero model is likely to sell to a niche market, it is true. The heavier horsehides won't drape like the film jacket, though I think their goat would be ideal (comparing it to my Wested goat - I know, itself not what was in the film, but so much more durable than lamb). I can see this being a cracking option for a real Indy buff that wants to wear the jacket daily, as opposed to the fan of the film who wants to go the cosplay route and for whom it's all about what will look nice in a hotel convention suite, or what is exactly the correct detail for the film (in which case, they'd want to stick with lamb, I imagine).

 

[Seb Lucas]

The Aero model is likely to sell to a niche market, it is true. The heavier horsehides won't drape like the film jacket, though I think their goat would be ideal (comparing it to my Wested goat - I know, it's self not what was in the film, but so much more durable than lamb). I can see this being a cracking option for a real Indy buff that wants to wear the jacket daily, as opposed to the fan of the film who wants to go the cosplay route and for whom it's all about what will look nice in a hotel convention suite, or what is exactly the correct detail for the film (in which case, they'd want to stick with lamb, I imagine).

For a tough, real life Indy jacket I'd go the goat Gibson and Barnes myself. You could wear that in hell and still come up smiling. However, Edward, your point is fair. I'm in the hotel convention suite myself. I don't leave the city unless I really, really have to. I hate the outdoors.

 

[Interbak]

I talked to Aero about these jackets when I saw this thread. The jackets on the German and Japanese websites are prototypes, these jackets aren't available yet. Amanda said they are still working on the patterns, Seb's concerns about the details may yet be addressed before this becomes a regular production item.
I'd love to have one in mid-weight horse, never cared for the flimsy lamb of the "original design", movie accurate or not.

Brian

 

[Jaguar66]

There is three clickable pictures on here http://aeroleatherclothingjapan.com/gallery I cant figure out how to post the pics themselves ....

 

[Tony B]

Nice one jag66.

They have been working on it , that yoke is at least an inch and a half higher than on the kentaurus one which would be an significant improvement, and underarm gussets for a little extra reach.

God that tanny orangie colour of chromexcel looks tasty.

 

[Tadite]

What leather is that? Oil Pull Horsehide or is it caused by the lighting?

Quick question on Aero Oil Pull. Isn't all chromexcel a "oil pull" leather? So wouldn't any of the normal Horween leather be classified as "oil pull" and if so what does that make the Aero? Just a name for oiler mid-weight horsehide?