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Schott permanently closes Chicago location

Edward

Bartender
Messages
25,078
Location
London, UK
Punkin Donuts & The Alley were both razed a few years ago and that enormous Target department store built in their place.

Always heartbreaking when that happens - a real, viscereal sign of the death of a scene. Camden Market went through it after 2004; Kensington Market (where Ken Calder sold his own fashion pieces to the Beatles and Stones, Hendrix and more in the 60s, punks bought leather jacket and drape coats in the 1970s, and at the tail end of the eighties DeeDee Ramone hung out when he quit the bank and moved to London to kick the heroin. I saw it at its tail end in 1999, and it was still very cool indeed) in 2000... Camden is still there, but it's a shadow of its former self, mostly tourist tat and a poor impression of what it was (ironically, Portobello Road has survivedintact much better). London has always been acity of change, but not all changes are for the better...
 
Messages
17,496
Location
Chicago
I saw Fugazi at the rainbow!
It’s a condominium building now. Only a few blocks east of me on Clark. I recall they found bones and maybe some body parts? buried in the ground when they started construction on the condos. Not nefarious or hard to believe with a cemetery right across the street.
 

Tom71

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,706
Location
Europe
It’s a condominium building now. Only a few blocks east of me on Clark. I recall they found bones and maybe some body parts? buried in the ground when they started construction on the condos. Not nefarious or hard to believe with a cemetery right across the street.

...and with Fugazi performing there...
 

Arnold

One of the Regulars
Messages
216
Location
Europe
That waxy cowhide looks beautiful, but Schott should have gone for the full Buco J23 style with a right side hand warmer pocket and a left side chest pocket above the D-pocket. As it is now it looks cheap and unfinished.
 
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16,822
That waxy cowhide looks beautiful, but Schott should have gone for the full Buco J23 style with a right side hand warmer pocket and a left side chest pocket above the D-pocket. As it is now it looks cheap and unfinished.

The D-pocket Schott is making is actually a repro of a Beck 666 Northeaster that Schott produced at some point in the past, which is an older, earlier D-pocket style (some 20 years older than the J-whatever). All in all, much more valuable as collectors piece than anything Buco. IMO, it's a much classier, cleaner jacket. I don't think there are more than three makers right now reproducing this style and Schott makes the most affordable one (in this leather, the CXL version is costs much more).

Schott made the right call to resurrect this style and keep it alive, instead of cheapening their line with yet another Buco repro. Though they do make a J-24 repro for the Legendary.
 

Arnold

One of the Regulars
Messages
216
Location
Europe
I know that it's an old style, but for a customer's subjective practical and aesthetical value of a current jacket it doesn't matter which historical ones are more "valuable as collectors' pieces".

And beyond that general principle and your opinion on classiness, there are reasons that the reduced type evolved and has been more scarce - it's simply less practical, and that's what riders used to be concerned with most.

Yes, Schott made the Black Stallion - at a time they didn't produce a lot of other good stuff. They had turned the 118 and 125 into "fat cuts" and then dropped the 125 altogether, so the Stallion was the only option for someone who wanted a full belt classic MC jacket from Schott. Making another run of that type would hardly "cheapen" anything else. Maybe it would cheapen the resale value of the Stallion for a few guys with closets full of jackets that only get worn a few weekends per year, but I wasn't aware that audience is as interested in Schott as they are in the more pricey and/ or and more boutique sort of brands. And speaking of those - I assume you mean the Buco-style jackets by Lost Worlds, Aero, Real McCoy and a fourth company whose name I forget - each one's interpretation is still different enough to address different customer types, despite the common pocket layouts. I don't think Stuart et al would lose out if there was a little bit more competition in this niche.
 
Messages
16,822
And beyond that general principle and your opinion on classiness, there are reasons that the reduced type evolved and has been more scarce - it's simply less practical, and that's what riders used to be concerned with most.

Northeaster hasn't evolved. It devolved into Buco and the likes. Northeaster is closer in spirit to the modern motorcycle racing jackets, nowadays made by Dainese, Vanson, etc. - It's a form fitting, clean, simple & yes, indeed a very practical, pure motorcycle jacket. Granted, the originals have had an even more form shaped cut than the current repros but what I'm saying, the Northeaster isn't a "lesser" jacket. I mean, you could consider any cafe racer a less practical jacket than the cross zip, then.

Buco is a straightforward leather jacket with a boxy body and a gigantic action back slapped on the back just so it would fit anyone who'd ordered one from the newspapers ad. In essence, J-23/24/whatever can be considered a reduced jacket, designed for mass production.

I assume you mean the Buco-style jackets by Lost Worlds, Aero, Real McCoy and a fourth company whose name I forget - each one's interpretation is still different enough to address different customer types, despite the common pocket layouts. I don't think Stuart et al would lose out if there was a little bit more competition in this niche.

I mean the Buco style jackets made by everyone and their dog. You've got like 10 makers I can think of rolling out J-whatevers and God knows how many there are still in China and Japan that we don't know about.
Attached is a photo of a jacket from last years Zara's collection. Yes, Zara. And worst/best part, doesn't even look that bad at all.

Do we really need Schott on this?

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/392777272899

s-l1600.jpg
 
Messages
16,822
stop mentioning Zara friend... remember last time zeus got mad, my screen flickers from induction... OMG that fake collar snap:D:D:D

I still wake up in sweat every now and then. Won't ever mess with old Greek Gods. Ever. Lol Zeus.

But seriously, I saw this Zara J-24 in the wild, only in brown and I genuinely thought it's something high end. It doesn't look bad at all. I actually wanted to ask here if anyone knows who's making it until I saw the jacket in Zara.
 

Carlos840

I'll Lock Up
Messages
4,944
Location
London
Northeaster hasn't evolved. It devolved into Buco and the likes. Northeaster is closer in spirit to the modern motorcycle racing jackets, nowadays made by Dainese, Vanson, etc. - It's a form fitting, clean, simple & yes, indeed a very practical, pure motorcycle jacket. Granted, the originals have had an even more form shaped cut than the current repros but what I'm saying, the Northeaster isn't a "lesser" jacket. I mean, you could consider any cafe racer a less practical jacket than the cross zip, then.

Buco is a straightforward leather jacket with a boxy body and a gigantic action back slapped on the back just so it would fit anyone who'd ordered one from the newspapers ad. In essence, J-23/24/whatever can be considered a reduced jacket, designed for mass production.



I mean the Buco style jackets made by everyone and their dog. You've got like 10 makers I can think of rolling out J-whatevers and God knows how many there are still in China and Japan that we don't know about.
Attached is a photo of a jacket from last years Zara's collection. Yes, Zara. And worst/best part, doesn't even look that bad at all.

Do we really need Schott on this?

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/392777272899

s-l1600.jpg

The proportions are all wrong, this hurts my soul...
 

Arnold

One of the Regulars
Messages
216
Location
Europe
I do think we could use ("needing" is not my lingo) Schott on this for precisely the reasons you mentioned - so someone finally makes that style in better overall quality than most of the other brands.

You're right, the J23 is boxy. I don't like that, just like I dislike how Schott gave the 118 and 125 a subtile "belly" in the 90s. But I do appreciate having those pockets (because I prefer to keep my keys, phone, glasses and other items separate), I do like that type of back construction (because it doesn't just help fat people, it also helps tapered athletic people - more so than underarm footballs) and I like Schott's leathers and construction, so there's not much that could be better than a real Schott version (not a 1:1 copy) of the J23/ 24.

FWIW, LW seems to do fully customized fits now (which he refused to for some time), and when you're lucky and very patient you can probably get a somewhat tapered J-something from Aero, but these will always be boutique items that costs a lot more money and/ or patience than something regularly available from Schott.

I guess you don't like such availability. It comes across as if you want designs you find superior to remain somewhat exclusive. Personally I feel that if something is good design, I won't mind it to spread, and spreading necessarily happens in part by way of competition and distribution across various strata of quality.
 

Arnold

One of the Regulars
Messages
216
Location
Europe
P. S. As for that Zara jacket, the proportions do look bad, but I've seen exactly the same mistake (far too much empty space between the collar and the pockets) on several Bates jackets. It looked as if Bates didn't change the layout when going up from the smallest sizes and just stretched that region. I don't see what this design flaw says exclusively about Zara or about Buco style jackets being a trend. If you think that's bad, consider that in my country, bad Perfecto-styled jackets have been popular for ten years (from fake leather to pink or sage green wool, and from ages 6 to 60).
 

Arnold

One of the Regulars
Messages
216
Location
Europe
...And I just searched for Zara leather jackets on eBay. Man, there's a lot more styles being "abused" that way then just the Buco, which you dislike anyway.
These posts were really pretentious.
 

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