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Welcome, if you have been lurking here, you should know by now that there is no single grail, but many
Welcome to the lounge, great first post and your first "real" leather jacket looks spot on!! I'm sorry to hear that your second one doesn't fit you well. When I bought my first "real" leather jacket (vintage Aero Highwayman) about 7 years ago I thought I'm done and in the meantime I bought around 80 jackets and sold around 30-35....spending too much time here does not help that much unless you are resistant to shopping addiction like some of us are but I guess most of us not
Have fun here!
Cheers, Robbie
Thanks red devil!
I'm just going to ignore what you said after welcome!
Btw... my lust for jackets gets satiated by just knowing the number of jackets you have in your collection!
Alden 403 Moc Toe Boot - Brown Chromexcel - $680 The classic "Indy" style Alden Boot in the classic Horween brown Chromexcel. 
Grant Stone Diesel Boot Dark Olive Chromexcel - #395 Goodyear welted, Horween Chromexcel, classic good looks. 
Himel Bros. - The Ross Mk. 1 Leather Jacket Classic D-pocket motorcycle/aviator style jacket. 
Welcome to the Lounge from the OG seats.Greetings all!
This is my first post here however, I have been a lurker for well over 2 years. My tryst with TFL started with my quest to acquire my first ‘real’ leather jacket. I had decided on going with Aero prior to lurking on here as they were regarded as pretty much the gold standard where I come from and I had always wanted to someday own an Aero jacket.
I decided on a Premier Highwayman in Brown CXLFQHH and spent countless hours pouring through the expert advice available on here. Right from the sizing and desired fit, to the choice of leather to finer details like Olive drab contrast stitching, the choice of liner and most importantly the choice of zipper. Oh!...the zipper!!. I remember spending a week debating between the hookless and a talon and after reading more about zippers than I ever thought possible, I decided to go with the talon zipper as even though I loved the detail of the gromets, I felt it wasn’t worth the risk. I also requested Holly (unfortunately to no avail) if they’d be willing to use gromets with a talon zipper as one lucky member on here managed to do.
For those interested and for posterity, my PHWM specifications ware as follows:
Size: 40 with a 0.75” taper
Heavy Duty Olive Cotton Drill for body and sleeves
Heavy Duty Corduroy strip at the hem for durability
Stitch Color - Olive Drab
All hardware in Brass
Talon zipper
Front Chest pocket to be angled as in the 1930s Half Belt
Two vertical inside Pockets – Open (No snap or zipper)
I received my jacket after making it through the LONG Covid wait, and couldn’t be happier with the outcome. I would never have been able to get it right were it not for the immense wealth of information available here on TFL!
My plan was to acquire one grail jacket and be done with it. I thought it would be easy as I live in a desert and can wear a leather jacket for 3 months of the year at best. So, after being completely blown away with my PHWM, I was confident that I would not ‘need’ any more jackets. This false sense of security lulled me into continue lurking on TFL and lo and behold, I caught the bug to try a Shinki jacket. I wanted to see first hand what all the buzz was about. Also, I rationalized it a 'needing' a black jacket to go with my brown PHWM to round up my small collection.
So in comes The Flat Head Single Riders Jacket. The jacket is BEAUTIFULLY constructed with French seams used on almost all panels. Although I am not a stitch counter (yet!), the stitch work is simply amazing. The contrast stitch makes it stand out even more and I’ve come to realize I really love the way French seams look. Though the jacket is similar in style to my PHWM, the cut is way more sculpted/contoured. Unfortunately, the jacket I got is one size too small. It looks great unzipped, however its too small for me to zip up. I’ve also added a few pounds in the past year which doesn’t help.
I intend on posting it on the Classifieds at TFL, but thought it would be more appropriate to post first on the Outerwear forum and say Hi and introduce myself and my mini leather jacket journey
Welcome to the Lounge! I am late to this thread, but really like how your Premier HWM fits you. Great job specifying it for the long haul too (durable cotton drill lining, etc)
Keep smiling and enjoy the warmth, here in northern-midwest US we are just stepping into jacket weather. It's the "down coat" and high wind weather that leaves the leather in the house and us wishing for warmth. So I may just have to visit your country soon.
