Chinese leather jackets

[PilotJens]

I can post the Instagram of the man behind Taylor Brando .
He isn't always available because he has to use a VPN.

 

[PilotJens]

Taylor Brando was the name I actually agreed on after countless weird combinations of either Skyrim / Marlon or Brando .
Skyrim leather
Brando Skyrim
Malon Brando

Chinese people try to name things after famous people because they want to be associated with it .
He insisted it had to be related to either Marlon or Brando

 

[PilotJens]

And they know about 5* leather and try to compete with them.

I told them to stay away from the Indian and Chinese hides for their European market . I can't verify if some sellers are tricking you into thinking that it is horween.

They mainly import horween ,"general" Italian leather , Leather from Tuscany .

 

[Canuck Panda]

I have had tons of jackets from Taobao/Aliexpress/and all the other Chinese resellers and also Five star. I got into Fivestar first because of the forum here. Then I got into Taobao on my own because I was bored during the Covid years. Back then, the average Chinese jacket was well under RMB ¥1,000 which was under USD 200. At that same time 5* was $350. However the main difference was that 5* was customizable and the Chinese jackets were not.

Another thing is that the Chinese jacket sellers take much better (edited) photos than 5*. And their jacket stock length is usually on the shorter side, about 0.75" (2cm) difference across the board.

At this point my best advise is to find an used name brand jacket with name brand leather. The biggest difference between a budget jacket and a name brand one is the leather. The name brand one isn't worth 5 times the budget jacket, maybe 30% more, but they want 5 times more, that is life. But thanks to the second hand market, you can find a name brand jacket for much less, just be patient.

Jacket on the left is a name brand one with name brand leather. Jacket on the right is a Chinese jacket with their own leather (btw this is probably the best one I had from there). Both are pull up type oil wax hides (油蜡皮). You can judge for yourself which you like better.

For me the budget leather hasn't figure out how to achieve the deep shine and consistency on the brand name leather. If they offer the same thing, they'd probably want the same price

 

[Technonut]

I had some crappy mirror pics previously posted... I managed to grab some better ones of the RL copy I purchased from AE. For around $200.00 USD, I'm quite happy with it :

EDIT: Here's the original RL directly patterned from shown in the AE listing:

EDIT: Adding another pic of an original RL: