Johnson Leathers Custom Jacket, new photos

[ForestForTheTrees]

I've worn this jacket quite a bit for the past week since first receiving it, detailed here. It is already breaking in nicely. Here are a few new photos taken in an attempt to capture more visual details of the jacket.

I'm very happy with this purchase. The folks at Johnson Leathers make a world class product.

 

[nabottle]

Nice jacket! The leather looks very rich. I'll have to check out Johnson Leathers right now!

 

[ForestForTheTrees]

Sadly, their website does not do a good job at representing their product.

You'll find far nicer visual examples of their jackets here on this forum if you look around. That's how I discovered them and why I decided to call them in the first place.

 

[buler]

Great looking jacket Forest! They do an excellent job.

B

 

[ForestForTheTrees]

Great looking jacket Forest! They do an excellent job.

Thanks buler. The jacket that you had made by them was one of the key examples that persuaded me to follow through with this custom jacket.

 

[dr.velociraptor]

Very nice looking jacket, I've checked them out but I will admit their jackets on their site don't look very good. They would do much better on custom orders and in general if they updated their site with some more flattering photos of their product.

 

[Deleted member 16736]

They need to update their available leathers. It's catchers-catch-can.

 

[Peacoat]

It is breaking in nicely. How would you characterize the leather; out of the box was it stiff, needing a lot of break in, or supple not needing much breaking in? As I remember, Johnson makes the leathers for several of the area motorcycle officer units.

I especially like the clean front of your jacket without the chest pocket. It is very similar to my Vanson Enfield, but I like the clean lines of your jacket better. I have never used the chest pockets on any of my motorcycle jackets, so really no reason to have them clutter up the presentation of the jacket.

Time to go take a look at Johnson and see what they have available.

 

[ButteMT61]

Looks great, and I'll say that I think steer/cow gets a bum rap or is at least ignored too often. It's a great hide, and is excellent for riding motorcycles. it can have even more character than some HH and seems more consistent in it's look/thickness/grain on many jackets - probably due to the big-a** cows it comes from
I think you done good with that one! I in fact bought a steer Aero HWM last night. Good stuff.

 

[ForestForTheTrees]

It is breaking in nicely. How would you characterize the leather; out of the box was it stiff, needing a lot of break in, or supple not needing much breaking in? As I remember, Johnson makes the leathers for several of the area motorcycle officer units.

I especially like the clean front of your jacket without the chest pocket. It is very similar to my Vanson Enfield, but I like the clean lines of your jacket better. I have never used the chest pockets on any of my motorcycle jackets, so really no reason to have them clutter up the presentation of the jacket.

Time to go take a look at Johnson and see what they have available.

It's somewhat hard to characterize how stiff the leather was out of the box. I would say that it was fairly stiff. You can see the obligatory "standing on its own" shot in my initial post. I think that mostly had to do with the thickness of the leather as it was actually fairly supple. The extra thickness of the jacket does add some weight (I checked and it weighed in at just over 6.5 lbs.). Even though it is thicker, it is more supple than the medium weight cowhide on my bike jacket which is made by Langlitz. This jacket is breaking in much more quickly. I noticed that the sample leather swatch I received would tend to hold it's shape after I would twist or bend it and it is proving to do the same with me, adapting to my form as I wear it more.
Like you, I don't use outside pockets other than the hand warming pockets, so I just left everything else off with the exception of one inside chest pocket, which I do use. I also didn't need the sleeve zips as I won't be riding in this one. So the simpler, the better as far as I was concerned. I do like the overall look of riding jacket sleeves so kept the barrel arms without any cuffs. I'm also a fan of the action back, so I left that intact as well.

 

[ForestForTheTrees]

Looks great, and I'll say that I think steer/cow gets a bum rap or is at least ignored too often. It's a great hide, and is excellent for riding motorcycles. it can have even more character than some HH and seems more consistent in it's look/thickness/grain on many jackets - probably due to the big-a** cows it comes from
I think you done good with that one! I in fact bought a steer Aero HWM last night. Good stuff.

Thanks. Steer/cow hides might not be as trendy amongst the most fashion-conscious, but I think it's doing just fine in the overall scheme of things. I don't believe that most actual race leathers are made from HH. I've read elsewhere that steer/cow actually has better abrasion resistance in circumstances such as a long slide on pavement. I'm hoping to not test that theory out anytime soon. I think goatskin is actually underrated as far as true protective garments are concerned. In the end, none of those hides are going to be of benefit to a person that is not wearing them. Whatever suits a person's fancy is fine by me, as long as they're wearing the gear when they ride.

Hope the new jacket works out for you.

 

[ButteMT61]

I've proven the value of heavy steer twice. The first time was after 20 years riding, accident free. You never know...
Steer is excellent vs skin on pavement!
I also think it ages and breaks-in as well as HH in many cases.
Enjoy, and keep the rubber down

 

[HighandDry]

Great looking jacket!

Do you have pics of you wearing it?

 

[Georgavis]

your jacket is really wonderful and leather is much more shiny.. really nice.

 

[Mojo1975]

We have an account with Johnson for their Forcefield armor, mostly their back protectors. Do you have a picture of the jacket on you? We could carry these in our shop in Seattle!

 

[ForestForTheTrees]

No pics wearing it, yet. I'll try to post some soon.