My 40s styled 3/4 length sateen cloth jacket

[JanSolo]

Greetings,

A post of a forum member who was looking for a good and durable leather alternative reminded me of a jacket that I totally forgot about. I bought it almost 5 years ago from german department store Manufactum. It's made from a very peculiar type of of cloth which is called "Deutschleder" in Germany. It's very heavy sateen cloth, similar to moleskin and other fustians. The fabric weight is 600 grammes per square meter and it is very densely woven. For over 8 decades that cloth was only used for the strongest of workwear and very few uniform parts for the Wehrmacht.

As you can see the jacket looks somehow similar to an Aero Stockman apart from the breast pocket and the fact that the jacket is slightly waisted. The jacket is available in black and light olive. About two years ago a bit of red "Glühwein" from the "Weihnachtsmarkt" (Christmas market) left some ugly spots which couldn't be removed. So I decided to dye the olive jacket to a dark brown. I did that using the bathing tub and the result was very nice. The spots disappeared and the brown was nice and even.
Before I dyed the jacket I cut off the black horn buttons and replaced them with a full set of brown/marbled Aero horn buttons which are much stronger and thicker but still fit the button holes. For sewing them on I used the mega strong Aero thread which they generously supplied.
Don't know why I don't wear that jacket anymore but I still think it looks quite nice. It's as heavy as lead and much warmer than a leather jacket. As you can see in the last picture the inner side of the cloth has moleskin/velvet like surface which makes it really warm

Hope the pics are of interest.

 

[Creeping Past]

Thanks for posting, Jan. That's a useful looking coat.

Is the term 'German leather' well known in Germany as a description of workwear or is it a relatively modern, quirky way of referring to such garments?

 

[JanSolo]

I would say that the term "Deutschleder" is not very well known among Germans even if they work in the textile industry. Everybody "in the know" would probably call this type of cloth a heavy "Atlas" (Sateen). "Deutschleder" seems to be a quite old term and it relates to "Englisch Leder" which used to be an old expression for moleskin. These days moleskin is moleskin in german. I think the old term Deutschleder was used to highlight the connection between these two types of cloth and probably to emphasize its durability.

 

[OneEyeMan]

Jan,
You are a wealth of knowledge when it comes to men's outerwear.
I nominate you as "Poster of the Year" :eusa_clap
And that jacket is awesome!
Wish we could get stuff like that here in the US.
Lenny

 

[Southernwayfare]

Are there any other products that are made from this textile?

 

[Tito]

Jan,
You are a wealth of knowledge when it comes to men's outerwear.
I nominate you as "Poster of the Year" :eusa_clap
And that jacket is awesome!
Lenny

!!!Absolutely agree!!!
:eusa_clap :eusa_clap

 

[JanSolo]

Come on, I'm sure that others are able to supply much more information on certain subjects than I can.
And Lenny, what about all the great American companies you have over there? Filson, Wolverine, Red Wing, Lee, Goodwear Leather, ehm Lost Worlds and all the others? I wish we would have such companies in Germany. Instead its just Porsche, Audi, BMW, VW, Mercedes, Leica and Zeiss. I would swap at least Mercedes for a couple of your cool brands....

Southernwayfare, yes there is a simple and straightfoward pair of trousers that's made from that material.

http://www.manufactum.de/Produkt/0/1388369/HerrenhoseDeutschleder.html?suchbegriff=deutschlederhose

Thanks again for your nice comments

 

[Volpone]

Hello,
Very nice jacket indeed, and a lot of other stuff on their site ... would have been better if they would accept payment by paypal ( please don't swap Mercedes, better VAG lol ).

 

[m000m000]

Hello,
Very nice jacket indeed, and a lot of other stuff on their site ... would have been better if they would accept payment by paypal ( please don't swap Mercedes, better VAG lol ).

They appear to accept credit cards, and bank transfers also (which are free of charge inside the EU excepting britain and other currency-independent countries).


Anyway, thanks for making the thread - I think I'll be ordering one of those on payday. The olive version seems to have gotten a price reduction too ('only' 165 euros now).
It's just too bad they don't stock the Jansolo brown version with the aero-made buttons - it's a small thing, but they really do enhance the character of the garment from just 'nice' to 'awesome' in my opinion.

 

[Edward]

I can see that giving great mileage as a travelcoat, too. Looks superb - nice dye job, looks original.