Hooked on jackets? Why?

[Aloysius]

Different colours, different details
I have 5 pairs of trail running shoes. Same model, different colours. Several Nike Air ... different models, different colours... 3 x moc toes, different colours, different leather, boots... can you have enough shoes? lol

Likewise, if I like something, I don't just want to have one of them (except for my love )

In this case I mean more like, for example, looking at Alden Indy boot order forms while my CXL Indy is sitting in the basement unworn for three years.

 

[Monitor]

You achieve the look you want, which in turn broadens your perspective & you want to go beyond. It is human nature. Simple as that. A leather jacket by itself matter less than we think, as much as we are capable of enjoying it as an objet d’art but the fact of the matter is, they don't matter at all when & if not worn.

Someone said style is a way to say who you are without having to speak and we like to speak, to talk. I personally strongly dislike it when people talk about this hobby in a negative context, such as addiction or that getting a new jacket is a quick fix or dopamine shot... That sort of thing. It's not that. It's just people wanting to socialize & communicate.

And that's why you find yourself going back to the websites looking for more clothes - You have so much more to say.

 

[Carlos840]

To me it's some sort of hunting/gathering thing, it was jackets for a decade, now i am back into musical gear, before that it was something else, i did it when i was a kid with rocks, coins and stamps, tools in my teenage years, musical instruments in my 20s, jackets in my 30s, right now i am obsessed with snare drums, there is always something.
I do have an addictive personality, come from a familly of multi generational alcoholics, had an OCPD father, struggled with both issues myself but I have that more under controle now, not sure if related...
Hunting for the next "thing" can sometimes feel like a need similar to smoking or drinking so it might well be related.
To me it feels like a very basic "need", that's how i ended up with 60+ leather jackets...

I have been doing this for so long, i can't tell if it was built in me from the start or if it is a consequence of my childhood.

Have you only ever done that with jackets or other things too?

 

[PilotJens]

For me it is the fact that these things have a sort of consistency in quality and reliability .
As someone on "the spectrum" I hate low quality or replacing things.
Leather jackets are sometimes made like back in the good old days when products actually lasted a while .
Also I don't see why you shouldn't have some variety . Some say don't you have enough outerwear and I guess I do but most of them serve a purpose and not all of them are leather.
People have all colors of shirts and sweaters.
Additionally leather has a lot of characteristics that are favored by human beings because it has the irregularities of nature like woodgrain.

So yeah the only problem is that these things are "expensive" but you don't have to replace them

 

[MickeyPunch]

Addiction.

You can try to find a million explanations and justifications, even philosophical or evolutionary ones, but it’s an addiction. You’re seeking the high of the next unboxing. Most people in here are addicts, whether they admit it or not. There’s just no sane reason to have 10+ jackets.

An addiction, just like any other. This one at least is not damaging to the body like nicotine, drugs or alcohol. It can be as bad for the wallet as those though.

 

[Monitor]

Addiction.

You can try to find a million explanations and justifications, even philosophical or evolutionary ones, but it’s an addiction. You’re seeking the high of the next unboxing. Most people in here are addicts, whether they admit it or not. There’s just no sane reason to have 10+ jackets.

An addiction, just like any other. This one at least is not damaging to the body like nicotine, drugs or alcohol. It can be as bad for the wallet as those though.

It is not an addiction.

 

[Observe]

I've noticed this, more on Instagram than here, but it irks me to see people calling excessive consumption of consumer goods a "hobby". Not to say that's solely what's going on here, but I do think there's a risk in this activity, where the only barrier to entry is your wallet, that it just becomes an act of crass consumerism. Again, the history and knowledge of jackets goes deeper than that, but I've grown to loathe the whole "here's my 3rd $2000 jacket this month from standard and strange! Buy fewer better things!" tired ass cliche. Don't hobbies usually require the cultivation of some type of skill? Anyway, I know this won't be a popular take here but I wanted to provide some balance.

 

[ton312]

I have done the same thing with everything I’ve had interest in. Since childhood. Dinosaurs, legos, Star Wars, comics, motorcycles, athletics. For me this is just another output for my behavior. It’s always about:

I don’t fight it. Dont question it and don’t fear it. It’s given me a lot of joy actually and also a fair bit of knowledge and skill. I have an obsessive personality. I feel fortunate that I channeled it (for the most part) into positives. It could easily go the other way and I think often does for some people.

 

[Monitor]

It would be addiction if we were to compulsively buy & hoard on any & all leather jackets available, with no planning, use or purpose - And some people indeed do that. @Observe, you're spot with the "Buy fewer better things" bs, in that regard, where most of these jackets serve only as a status symbol and a proof of who's got a deeper wallet.

Hobby is indeed a dumb word to call it but there is... Such aspect to it, at least for me. I never go back to the jacket I sold. I learn from the experience and move on. Almost every next jacket I ever bought was an improvement over the last one (in more or less obvious ways) and I rarely ever looked back. Sometimes it took one jacket, sometimes ten but I am evolving. My taste, my style, my understanding, it is all improving and it wouldn't have if I just piled up on the most expensive jackets that someone on the Instagram told me this is the shit to get.

And sure, the process was fun & unboxing the next jacket felt great so technically, yeah, feeling good is addictive but it isn't nearly as simple as that. I don't think any of us here are addicted. Addiction is being stuck in place, repeating the same thing over and over again while most people that I know on this forum learned & changed so much throughout this hobby, for lack of a better word, that simply labeling it addiction is viciously wrong.

 

[MrProper]

It is not an addiction.

I would see it the same way. I like variety and not looking the same every day. So I need different colours, styles, etc.
If it were different, I'd have two pairs of shoes, two pairs of jeans, three or four tops and a leather jacket. But who wants that? Not me

 

[blatman23]

The problem with a thousand jackets is that you become that guy.... People will tell you're pathological because although you will look nice, you lose that surprise/variety factor. There is a sense of "this guy is concerned with himself to an interesting degree"

Let me give you an example...

I have this "ceiling star projector LED" in my recording studio, and I liked it so I bought another one for the living room for movie nights, and my girl immediately told me that it lost the nice touch it had being only in the studio.

Adding one to the living room made it pathological and repulsive.

Of course, the good thing about having a thousand jackets is that if you apprecaite leather and hand made stuff, you will feel at home around nice things like that. But towards the outside, you will always be that "guy ordering jackets" rather than that "cool lone wolf who found one at a salvation army store and rocks it nicely"

It's all about projection and how you conduct yourself around the people you love

Another illustration is, your favorite movie star only had one leather jacket in that movie you liked, and that kept inspiring people for many decades after release.
Would the same actor have been cooler had the production kept changing Eastmans between every shot? Or would it make him look like Ben Stiller at Dodgeball? Rather pathological and over concerned.

 

[Carlos840]

It is not an addiction.

Trust me it can be...
The fact that one can be organised and clever about it doesn't mean it isn't an addiction.
Addiction isn't always a total loss of controle.
And the fact that you don't consider it an addiction personally doesn't mean it can't be for somebody else.

To me it is 100% a side of my addictive personality. There is very little difference between the way i used to look at the classifieds and the way i sometimes looked inside my fridge wondering what to drink next...

So you might say that "it" isn't an addiction, just that i am an addict, and my addiction takes multiple forms, but to me buying Jackets was 100% part of my addiction.
The fact that i enjoy wearing them, enjoy the history and the design of them doesn't change that fact.

 

[zebedee]

To me, it's phases. I go through phases where I buy two or three in a year, then nothing. I drink in phases, too. Smoking was at a constant low level from kid to now (I smoked about 6 -8 a day, on some days, for three decades, then it went up to 15 a day for six months, then I quit).

I am also pretty sure that I will soon get rid of all but six of the jackets and about six or seven pairs of footwear. After a while, I feel vaguely ridiculous if I own too much stuff.

 

[Al 916]

Trust me it can be...
The fact that one can be organised and clever about it doesn't mean it isn't an addiction.
Addiction isn't always a total loss of controle.
And the fact that you don't consider it an addiction personally doesn't mean it can't be for somebody else.

To me it is 100% a side of my addictive personality. There is very little difference between the way i used to look at the classifieds and the way i sometimes looked inside my fridge wondering what to drink next...

So you might say that "it" isn't an addiction, just that i am an addict, and my addiction takes multiple forms, but to me buying Jackets was 100% part of my addiction.
The fact that i enjoy wearing them, enjoy the history and the design of them doesn't change that fact.

100% with you on this Carlos (good to see you btw)

 

[Monitor]

Trust me it can be...
The fact that one can be organised and clever about it doesn't mean it isn't an addiction.
Addiction isn't always a total loss of controle.

I believe you and have said so above; It absolutely can be but I think your relationship with leather jackets was more of a fixation than an addiction. As you said, you had it under control, your learned enough through your journey to realize exactly what you wanted out of it & once you reached the end of the road, which you basically did, you recognized it as such & knew it is time to stop and move on to the next thing.

I don't know, the way you collected leather jackets, especially Lost Worlds, always struck me as perfectionism, rather than addiction.

 

[BigPond]

I now have ten Aeros and a Simmons Bilt. I have one Rogue Territory Supply Jacket, one Pike Bros. Deck Jacket and a Carhartt Detroit. I also have three tailor-made overcoats and a Jermyn Street raincoat.

I have about fifteen pairs of shoes and boots, more than a third of which are handmade.

Ironically, for months on end, I can live in a pair of William Lennons and one Aero. At work, I tend to wear smart clothes all the time, on a rotation. At home or when travelling, I look as if I care relatively little about my appearance, apart from jackets and shoes.

I acquired all of these things over about twenty years. It's been a long-term thing, but I now have too much stuff. I have stopped myself buying things now, and I reckon at least a third of my purchases were unnecessary. Thank the Lord I have no interest in watches or cars...

Jackets call to me mainly because I can really rough it in one for a long time. I can, I have, but I seldom do, so now I have all these .... possessions. At least I now force myself to get wear out of them: the trick is to limit yourself to a few jackets or boots for a few months at a time. I once went minimalist with just one overcoat, one aero and three pairs of footwear for a year. It was oddly liberating.

Out of curiosity what is that one aero you wear most?

 

[Fonzie]

I think these types of conversations here are very healthy and makes the lounge so much more valuable and creates a more bonded community.

What happens in these pages is not just a hobby or a place to fulfill an addiction. It’s a lot more:
It’s a need for self-discovery and connection with others.

Most people land here looking to fill a void that they believe a jacket will fulfill. I don’t believe anyone starts by thinking I’m going to curate a collection of expensive garments and spend hours of research. It’s a process.

You start with looking for the “one” and then you realise that you are a much more complex individual and there’s others like you that feel free to express themselves in this forum, and that’s liberating.
Then you start expressing yourself, learning about others and about yourself in the process, and that’s how you end up with a dozen expensive jackets.
Then guilt and insecurity creeps in, have I taken it too far? Am I addicted? Is this OCD?
Yes and no. Depends on what you consider an addiction. If you’re not hurting yourself or others in the process it’s not damaging, it’s just a process of learning and connecting.

Franz Kafka said it best:
“Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.”

 

[mumpy]

To me it's some sort of hunting/gathering thing, it was jackets for a decade, now i am back into musical gear, before that it was something else, i did it when i was a kid with rocks, coins and stamps, tools in my teenage years, musical instruments in my 20s, jackets in my 30s, right now i am obsessed with snare drums, there is always something.
I do have an addictive personality, come from a familly of multi generational alcoholics, had an OCPD father, struggled with both issues myself but I have that more under controle now, not sure if related...
Hunting for the next "thing" can sometimes feel like a need similar to smoking or drinking so it might well be related.
To me it feels like a very basic "need", that's how i ended up with 60+ leather jackets...

I have been doing this for so long, i can't tell if it was built in me from the start or if it is a consequence of my childhood.

Have you only ever done that with jackets or other things too?

I have collected coins, stamps, phone cards, stones as a kid then later vintage computers, vinyl records, rc cars etc.
I also have a pretty addictive/obsessive personality in general.

 

[Monitor]

Then guilt and insecurity creeps in, have I taken it too far? Am I addicted? Is this OCD?
Yes and no. Depends on what you consider an addiction. If you’re not hurting yourself or others in the process it’s not damaging, it’s just a process of learning and connecting.

That's exactly it - I've seen it so many times, as soon as one becomes passionate about something that other people don't understand, one automatically start making up excuses about it, ultimately leading oneself to believe that regardless of how much joy it brings, one should enjoy it less because less healthy and moderation is good.

Franz Kafka said it best:
“Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.”

I love this.

 

[mumpy]

Everything that I am interested in, I do it in an excessive way. There is always some optimisation function behind it. Sometimes I think the optimisation function is objective but almost always it is subjective. As I gotten older, it is even more subjective and less measurable which keeps the fixation interesting.

There are also some underlying principles that I adhere to such as minimalism, purity, beauty, functionality, rarity etc. and then certain external standards that I choose to resonate with.

Even deeper than that is the relation with the object, something external. To some extent external objects store context for my experiences. Like memories stored externally in a way etc.

If I look at any vinyl record I have ever gotten I can recall everything about the experience (place, people I was with etc.) but without seeing and touching the record it is as if I can’t access the memory. This is also why I really like photography as well.

This is also true for my jacket collection for sure.