Questions about sheepskin (Shearling) jackets

[whataboutalifetime]

Hi Loungers,

I'm relatively new to this forum but have been actively collecting leather jackets for a while. However, there is a long-time question I really don't quite understand. Brands like Schott and Aero always set their shearling jacket considerably pricy than their other leather jackets. Based on my limited knowledge, sheepskin is cheaper than say steerhide or horsehide, and more readily available from sources. In the meantime, seems like everyone agrees that sheepskin lasts much shorter and weaker than other animal hides. So I really don't understand, are we paying the price difference only for the warmth? Or is the tanning process for sheepskin is much harder than other hides? Or is there any commercial reason? I do appreciate the beauty of sheepskin jackets. There must be some reason to justify the high price, I just don't know yet.

 

[whataboutalifetime]

My limited understanding lead to several aspects to justify a jacket price:
1. The leather is valuable and scarce-- not apply to sheepskin
2. The leather tanning process is difficult-- I don't know
3. The construction of the jacket is complicated-- I don't know but seems like shearling jackets are not obviously more complicated than other jackets.
4. The functionality-- other hides are more durable and rugged, sheepskin is warmer.
5. Commercial consideration.

 

[powersci]

I own quite a number of shearling jackets. My response here is just my opinion.

The higher cost of shearling vs. some leathers is likely due to the quality of the skin. I’ve noticed that some cheaper shearling jackets will have less dense wool and it will not be as soft compared to those that are more expensive. I can easily say that my Aero jackets have very dense and incredibly soft shearling compared to some of my relatively cheaper shearling jackets. My most expensive shearling is unbelievable soft! However, the skin is also very thin.

I think some skins are more prone to showing scars, knicks, and wear which may not be the case for leather-only products. While leather can show wear/tear, shearling skins on their own are more susceptible to it especially when not backed by another skin. This means that a manufacturer may have to look at multiple skins to find the perfect match (e.g. color, texture) to construct a jacket.

Aero sources their shearlings carefully. The last time I sent a made-to-measure order the turnaround time went from 1 month to 4 months. They ran out of shearling from their provider. Anyone is welcome to correct me if I’m wrong on that, but I swear that is what they told me. The extra wait was worth it! The jackets‘ shearling were incredibly thick, dense, and soft.

Working with shearling is not the same as working with regular leather jackets. In the very rare times I’ve had to get my jackets repaired it was difficult to find someone who could do this. I once took a shearling jacket back to the vendor for repair. They were hesitant to make repairs because it was a shearling jacket. They recommended I go to a fur specialist to get it fixed. I followed their advice and the specialist did a great job with it.

And my final thought: the bigger the company (size or name), the lower the price. I wouldn’t call Aero a small company, but the jackets I get from them are almost always made by the same 2-3 individuals. Let’s compare this to a larger company. A larger company can probably make more money through more sales with smaller profit margin. A smaller company can’t match that but can make more money with fewer sales. I also think about how the brand has value, too. For example, there is an infamous Reddit thread that listed Aero as a “low end cheap” and listed Burberry as “high-end” simply due to price. Whoever wrote that was willing to pay more for Burberry simply due to its name and price over the true quality of the product.

Edit: grammar, spelling

 

[TooManyHatsOnlyOneHead]

This happens with a lot of things in life. It's both a blessing and a curse. Once you sample something of very high quality, you understand why there is a difference. There is a lot of gray area of course. For instance, I'm just as happy eating a cheese burger as I am eating a New York prime strip steak. But it's a different experience. Value is hard to measure because everyone will be different.

What complicates things as in many cases you're paying up charge for brand and other market settings. Just check the prices on a high end fashion brand leather jacket. Probably $3k+ for thin calf skin. Probably very exclusive leather, top of the top, etc. but wouldn't stand up to something significantly cheaper in most uses.

As @powersci said, the higher end shearling is just going to feel and look better. I didn't realize the difference until I got a Toys McCoy B3 and compared it to my Aero B3. On many levels we're talking about diminishing returns, i.e. is it really worth $2k more. But there is no doubt, there is a difference.

 

[Sloan1874]

It's a relatively niche skill as well. Aero has just one or two shearling machinists, as opposed to the dozen or so leather workers. Also, for the top-end makers, the shearlings are made bespoke to their requirements: Aero's retooling of their jackets back in 2015 were tanned to match a square of unfaded shearling found under a pair of Irvin trousers, while Eastman had a run of jackets made from a particularly sought after Merino sheepskins.

 

[Monitor]

Quality sheepskin is slightly more fussier to work with, due to thickness of the "material" and having mostly smaller panels to construct a jacket with, among other things, plus high quality shearling is difficult to source as tanning procedure can get significantly more complex - For instance, getting the surface of a sheepskin panel which is basically suede, to appear smooth & shiny like leather, can be quite a task from my understanding - and as Sloan noted, the demand for sheepskin vs. regular leather is significantly lower (how many days of wear do you get out of your shearling in Dallas? ) so that all adds to the account.

On the other hand, if streamlined, sheepskin garments can nonetheless be produced cheaply and easily, something that the crazy amounts of UK made sheepskin jackets and coats on the market proves.
Sheep leather indeed is readily available so if tanned in the simplest manner, it all comes down to stitching the panels together. There is no lining and what little hardware and pockets sheepskin coats have, is mostly hidden behind the furry edges, anyway. But these aren't very nice.

Ultimately, high quality sheepskin jacket by a well known brand costs a lot of money because any other high quality leather jacket by a well known brand cost a lot of money. Higher price is dictated by smaller demand, combined with a more specialized production.

 

[whataboutalifetime]

Actually I have several shearling coats to help me in Dallas winter when the temperature drops to 30 or even 20. I really appreciate their functionality and beauty. Guess I'm a little influenced by most of my friends wearing down coats that questioned the pricing of a shearling coat.

 

[Monitor]

Actually I have several shearling coats to help me in Dallas winter when the temperature drops to 30 or even 20. I really appreciate their functionality and beauty. Guess I'm a little influenced by most of my friends wearing down coats that questioned the pricing of a shearling coat.

In my view, shearling jackets are worth whatever money the one you fancy costs, more than any textile, or maybe even leather, jacket. They look good, they look luxurious and expensive & are unmatched in keeping one warm. Which alone is infinitely more than anything regular leather does since leather actually makes you feel colder on a cold day.

 

[Edward]

Based on my limited knowledge, sheepskin is cheaper than say steerhide or horsehide, and more readily available from sources. In the meantime, seems like everyone agrees that sheepskin lasts much shorter and weaker than other animal hides..

I think there may be some confusion here. Leather - i.e. just the skin, tanned - from a sheep or a lamb tends to be fragile (not always so, but...), is often cheaper and is typically used in lower-end, fashion pieces. Sheepskin "shearling" jackets are made from the sheep's skin tanned with the wool still in place. They may, literally, come from the same animal, but figuratively they're a whole different animal. Shearling does, if memory serves, tend to be more expensive to buy. I also have a vague recollection there was something of a shortage a few years ago which pushed up the price internationally, but I really don't recall the details.

 

[Edward]

Is sheepskin more readily available?

https://ask.usda.gov/s/article/What-is-the-most-consumed-meat-in-the-world

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, pork is the most widely eaten meat in the world (36%) followed by poultry (33%), beef (24%), and goats/sheep (5%).

Interesting - I'd always heard it claimed goat was actually the most widely eaten meat, but this would suggest the opposite. Intriguing the UN found it to be pork, given 1.4 billion Muslims, 1.2 billion Hindus, and 15.2 million Jewish folks all eschew it, but I have no reason to doubt the UN on this one. Hogskin isn't something you see often; I believe at one time it was popular for workgloves. I have a Stetson cap somewhere made of it which is nice. Always thought it could make an interesting Summer-season jacket, but never seen one.

 

[Canuck Panda]

Jackets made with livable wages in first world countries will cost more. How much would we like to get paid for our day‘s work. There will be difference in the quality of materials, but most cost is labor cost. The cheaper ones do tend to have thinner / less dense fur. I believe they are spec that way to mass produce faster, easier and faster to sew than denser thicker furs.
The denser sheepskins are sewn on a different type of fur sewing machine like this one with the two disk, before getting trimmed and topstitched on the conventional walking foot sewing machine. The cheaper thinner sheepskins can technically all be done on conventional sewing machine like polyester Sherpa. So it takes much longer hours to produce a jacket with denser fur.

The sheepskin jackets I have don‘t handle modern world well. They look cool af, but…. Three things bugs me about my sheepskin jackets,
1. It’s suede/flesh side out, either resin/acrylic painted or just suede. Unless the rough out side is loaded with oil it’s not gonna handle wet conditions as well as grain side out horse hides. Of course I believe sheepskin were first used in very dry cold conditions. But most winters are messy and not so dry.
2. The dense fur lined sleeves restrict movements. Again these coats were developed for staying warm without a lot of movements in dry arctic settings. But it doesn’t translate well into modern lifestyle. Not mine at least.
3. Very few designs have pockets. Hand warmers are needed in the winter. Again when the sheepskin jackets were developed so were the Hulk sized sheepskin gauntlets.

Personally I think the sheepskins were better suited for military use (ground crew). While civilian horsehide jackets with fur lining works better in our modern world, same as they did a century ago. Either are still cooler than the down coats though which I admit I also wear, on lazy days.

Perhaps sheepskin vests (as mid layer) is the middle compromise. With pockets though.

 

[MrProper]

The dense fur lined sleeves restrict movements. Again these coats were developed for staying warm without a lot of movements in dry arctic settings. But it doesn’t translate well into modern lifestyle. Not mine at least.

At least with my Shearlings I can not confirm this. I can move around in them just fine. Also, mine have already gotten wet and have not taken any damage (ok, not soaking wet, but snow and rain for a manageable time).

 

[Capt. Apollo]

Nothing fragile about my Patton Shearling I bought from Avirex when they first offered them in 1984 iirc

Still looks like the day I bought it

 

[Monitor]

I think there may be some confusion here. Leather - i.e. just the skin, tanned - from a sheep or a lamb tends to be fragile (not always so, but...), is often cheaper and is typically used in lower-end, fashion pieces. Sheepskin "shearling" jackets are made from the sheep's skin tanned with the wool still in place. They may, literally, come from the same animal, but figuratively they're a whole different animal. Shearling does, if memory serves, tend to be more expensive to buy. I also have a vague recollection there was something of a shortage a few years ago which pushed up the price internationally, but I really don't recall the details.

Shearling is unshaven though trimmed sheepskin, innit? The definitions on this case are a bit fuzzy but to me, the terms sheepskin and shearling mean the exact same thing.

 

[Edward]

Shearling is unshaven though trimmed sheepskin, innit? The definitions on this case are a bit fuzzy but to me, the terms sheepskin and shearling mean the exact same thing.

It does seem to have blurred in recent years. I would habitually, pre-TFL, have referred to the stuff used for an Irvin or B3 as 'sheepskin'; I think shearling is an Americanism that (for obvious reasons) I picked up here. Where it gets more complicated of course is that whereas once it was only lambskin you heard of in terms of "normal" leather, skin from adult sheep is now often being used by some makers - e.g. Lewis. It can be confusing for a native English-speaker, I imagine for you guys in the English-as-second-language camp it's a challenge too. (I am constantly in awe how y'all are able to cope with English on here, I could in no way manage that level of conversation in any language other than English, much to my eternal shame.)


For clarity:

shearling = sheep skin with the wool still on it, like an Irvin / B3 / B6 et cetera, I think a US term in origin

sheepskin = in the UK, this would typically (especially outside our circles) mean the same as 'shearling', though now that there are several makers marketing leather as the tanned hide, no wool, of adult sheep (as distinct from lamb), I'm also seeing 'sheepskin' being used in this context - hence the confusion.

 

[TheBigEraser]

At least with my Shearlings I can not confirm this. I can move around in them just fine. Also, mine have already gotten wet and have not taken any damage (ok, not soaking wet, but snow and rain for a manageable time).
View attachment 405745 View attachment 405746 View attachment 405747

Hi! May I ask who makes the first jacket? Looks quite functional and stylish!

 

[Bfd70]

 

[MrProper]

Hi! May I ask who makes the first jacket? Looks quite functional and stylish!

Gladly. The first jacket is a customized version of my ideas made by 5*.
Base is a M-444, but with different collar and pockets. And of course everything according to my measurements.

 

[Sloan1874]

In my experience, Irvins look their best and are most comfortable when worn a size up from your normal one. the warm air gets trapped in the extra space and keeps you toasty, like a sleeping bag. I'd happily sleep on a park bench in my Irvin. My D-1's perfect for Scottish weather, but is more comfortable as a standard fit. I did own an ANJ4, which was a beautiful piece of kit, but the fleece was so thick that it was unwearable above the chilliest weather that we get here, so I traded it for a D-1.

 

[Edward]

In my experience, Irvins look their best and are most comfortable when worn a size up from your normal one. the warm air gets trapped in the extra space and keeps you toasty, like a sleeping bag. I'd happily sleep on a park bench in my Irvin. My D-1's perfect for Scottish weather, but is more comfortable as a standard fit. I did own an ANJ4, which was a beautiful piece of kit, but the fleece was so thick that it was unwearable above the chilliest weather that we get here, so I traded it for a D-1.

I still have half an eye on an ANJ4, but I have inherited my mother's cold bones, I think! Definitely agree on Irvin sizing. They also seem to look better a size big as well, maybe we've just absorbed all those old photos of RAF boys in the Summer of 44 wearing them a bit big because that's what the QM flung at 'em...

In terms of cold weather jackets, I still very much fancy the B2, but their lack of WW2 profile - or, more to the point, the lack of their WW2 via the lens of Hollywood profile - does seem to mean finding repros is like hen's teeth.