Tell a story about your first leather jacket...

[Seb Lucas]

Welcome. I remember the series too. Was it 1982? Definitely a post Raiders vibe.

 

[navetsea]

This the ad? Use to love Camel plains.
View attachment 41957

 

[Seb Lucas]

Yes, Stephen Collins before his... problems...

I remember watching this show the night it came out. Network TV was never very skillful but when it tried to borrow from a hit movie all you saw was how well made Raiders was. The repro A2 I'm sure inspired many an Avirex and LL Bean purchase. I'm pretty sure it helped inspire me. Had no idea what an A2 was and in the pre Internet days you had to be lucky to get good information. It was books, magazines and who you knew.

 

[Monitor]

Such a cool thread! I wish I had a jacket story as fun and interesting as any ITT to contribute, other than what I've already said... Still, I'm immensely enjoying reading this so keep 'em coming! Also, more photos!

 

[Edward]

Heh, I remember that show - the dog with the eypatch especially sticks in my mind. I remember being at a friend's house and watching the pilot - which I recall as feature-length? Wasn't the monkey ultimately brass? Then there was Bring 'Em Back Alive from the same period. Of course, it wasn't until a few years later that I first saw an Indy (Temple in the cinema; BBC1's Christmas Day film in 1984 was then Raiders....

My first leather jacket was actually my second....

Christmas Day, 1990. I'd wanted a leather jacket for a year or two. As a young metalhead rapidly discovering punk rock, there was only one type of leather jacket: the Perfecto style. Had to be that style, had to be black. Other options were merely jackets made from leather; this was the only Leather Jacket. I didn't ask for one, but Santa did his best to surprise.... what arrived was a leather jacket with a brushed-cotton, tartan interior. I wish I could catch a look at it again now to see whether it might be a style I'd actually wear these days, but memory informs me that it was what one might call a "Blouson" - more Eighties than Fifties. The quality was good, as I remember. Being the sort of kid in those days who'd have been a bit reluctant to tell my folks it was wrong, I hedged around the issue a lot. I believe I even wore it for all of fifteen minutes, in the car, to and from the Christmas Day service. The week after Christmas, my folks cajoled the truth out of me, and we went back to the shop. The blouson was returned, and we came away with a Perfecto style jacket. I must hunt out some photos - they must exist, because for two years thereafter until I outgrew it, that size 38" jacket was like a second skin to me. I cannot for the life of me recall the brand. I'm sure I'd have recognised it if it was a Schott: it definitely didn't have that classic yellow and white label. The lining was black, quilted, with one inside pocket (horizontal, right hand side, stud fastener, about six inches deep by four inches wide, lip trimmed in black leather). The label was white text, embossed on black leather. It bore the legends "Naked Cowhide" (which I didn't understand at the time), and "NYC USA". I wish I knew what it was. I do recall Dad handing over the princely sum of £72, which was quite a lot back in 1990. I think my folks were disappointed by my fashion choice. They'd picked out a "nice" jacket that I could "wear with a tie for your youth group on a Sunday night". I was given strict instructions (ignored, naturally) never to wear it in Belfast, with my Dad muttering about "gangs" and such. (Let's put it this way, I didn't win the DM boots argument until 1993....).

I loved that jacket, wore it everywhere from December 1990 until I finally outgrew it by the Summer of 1993, after my A levels. I grew my hair as long as I could get away with at school (I was never so proud as the day my form teacher ordered me to get a haircut, or - bizarrely - the day I earned the other badge of honour of having Properly Long Hair - beinbg mistaken for a girl from behind..... Yeah, me neither....). Wore it with baggy band T-shirts and jeans as tight as I could get hold of. Somebody in a shop queue once thought I was having a seizure, when I was just trying to get change out of the pocket. At seventeen, I had a pair of little pointy-toed, ankle-length cowboy boots. Later on as I became more of a punk, the hair got shorter and the cowboy boots fell by the wayside, replaced with DMs, squaddie boots, Converse.... The jacket even had its own name - Vincent. After Vincent Damon Furnier, better known to the world as Alice Cooper. Alice was definitely an influence on me wanting it.... though I never did fancy the leather trousers. Or the codpiece.

When I outgrew it, that first jacket was eventually sold on to the daughter of one of my dad's friends; she wore it out on her first motorbike. (I had the jacket, but never the bike.) I didn't have another leather until 1995.... That September, I turned 21, and my parents decided to have another go. This time, they went to a motorcycle shop and bought me a "biker jacket".... except it was a modern thing with serious padding. Too modern for my sense of "classic" design (by this time, Alice Cooper had been replaced as fashion icon by Joey Ramone). so back to the shop went this undoubtedly beautifully made jacket. (I remember looking at it at home, side by side with that first jacket, which wasn't sold until just a few months later. Dad gently saying "Your old jacket is just a toy compared to this. Me saying I know, but.... the look.... It was funny, all the armouring. Something out of Judge Dredd... made me look twice the size I then was over the shoulders). By December 1995, somehow I ended up then not with the Perfecto I wanted, but a made in Pakistan jacket something vaguely akin to a Highwayman. It was worn just a few times then, though about a year after moving to London - early 2000, this would have been - I had it brought over, and wore it quite a lot for two or three years until a broken zip and liner replacement would have been necessary, which would have cost more than replacing the jacket at this point in time, so it was sold on ebay. I remember being in several motorcycle shops back then - now wish I'd picked one of the nice, plain cafe racers, but none of them were the Perfecto style I really wanted (I remember a lot of those palces kept sayingb they didn't get them in any more because they were "like boob tubes" - this was the era of crazy-long leather jackets for folks who rode crotch rockets with their rump six inches higher than their faces..... ha.... ). Still, I got some good service out of the jacket I did pick later on.

In 1998, my Dad found me a ten pound charity shop bargain on a reasonable Perfecto style. The surface of the leather was well faded, but a couple of evenings with black boot polish brought it right up, and it looked great. That jacket was worn to death by me.... Never to the office, though (which is where the other jacket came in - something less in-yer-face to wear to work). When it came time for it to be replaced by something similar (which I bought online for a whole £70 again, new) as a regular wearer, it ended up becoming a costume piece. First a Scorpions jacket (the hotrod gang from Grease, not the German metal band), then the sleeves came off (I still have them, though - Scorpions 'colours' and all), and it came into its current incarnation as a costume recreation of the one worn by the Eddie charactrer on the 2006/7 and 2009/10 UK tours of the Rocky Horror Show. It's still around in that guise today, while its successor hangs alongside it, bearing the BRMC logo and 'Johnny' script.

By 2003, the 'other' jacket had been replaced by a cafe racer style (sold in 2005 when I decided it just wasn't me), and then I made the dangerous decision that There Are Other Colours of Leather. I recall a burgundy, 70s-Lewis style (Wolf, I think ws the brand) cafe racer type with diamond pattern shoulders. Looked at a lot of brown jackets too. Around this time I discovered the Aero and Eastman sites, lusted after "a Steve Macqueen jacket" and the Hartmann, but decided £300 was bit more than I could justify (how times change...), so it didn't happen.... nor did the Wested Raiders after I handled one at a convention and was unimpressed with the lightness of the lambskin (knowing nothing of hides back then). By 2007 I had foun this place, rediscovered Aero et al, and the rest is another story entirely....

Uhm. I've deviated a bit, but, yeah.... that first jacket was something special. I wish I could see it again now - I'd love to know what the brand was, and to know what happened it. I'm sure it's still out there somewhere....

 

[rocketeer]

Tales of the Golden Monkey, I vaguely remember that. Always liked the tan cap rather than the winter version(green?) Looks great with all the stiffening taken out and a wing badge replacing the USAAF device(for us non servicemen).
All these early A2s, we were quite happy with them until all the more 'authentic' makers styles came out. 'The most authentic' being a byword you could apply to anything that was near to the real thing but not quite. Avirex spoilt theirs though by having all that fancy paintwork replicated but had hand warmer pockets and a split panel back.

 

[skydog757]

I had mustered out of the Air Force in 1980 and wore my M1 OD green field coat for years until I saw Raiders. Being on a budget and not knowing much of anything about leather I bought an A2 style leather from J.C. Penny through the mail on clearance. It was brown, actually about three different shades of brown as very few sections of the jacket matched (each sleeve was different from both the body and each other) and the density/quality/type of grain differed greatly as well. I wore it for about 1 1/2 years until the sleeves started to tear and flake - it looked like I was training attack dogs. Went back to the M1 for quite some time after that.

Let me say that I have learned a LOT more about leather since (and I am still learning through this site) and have acquired a good number of jackets since then. Also, I have bought several J.C. Penny St. John's Bay leathers and found them to be of a MUCH higher quality.

 

[AeroFan_07]

Let me say that I have learned a LOT more about leather since (and I am still learning through this site) and have acquired a good number of jackets since then. Also, I have bought several J.C. Penny St. John's Bay leathers and found them to be of a MUCH higher quality.

Glad you had a positive experance with JCPenny leathers after your first one, as for me, I didn't ever consider another JCPenny leather jacket after old Number 1.

 

[a2jacketpatches]

Yes, Stephen Collins before his... problems...

I remember watching this show the night it came out. Network TV was never very skillful but when it tried to borrow from a hit movie all you saw was how well made Raiders was. The repro A2 I'm sure inspired many an Avirex and LL Bean purchase. I'm pretty sure it helped inspire me. Had no idea what an A2 was and in the pre Internet days you had to be lucky to get good information. It was books, magazines and who you knew.

Had to be mid 70's when I was first tuned in to the coolness of the A2 Jacket. Saw a painted back at the flea market as a young boy, vaguely remember the crudely painted P-47 on the back with large chenille Squadron Patch (don't remember much about it except that it was chenille) As I made fun of the artwork my Dad swiftly corrected me and explained the significance of the Jacket. He was a scale modeller of everything, ships, aircraft, figures, you name it and had a well rounded knowledge. Aside from the Protech I bought at an airshow, my first real a2 was found at about 7AM at the town dump free shed hanging on a folding chair, and it was my birthday. I always stopped in there on my way home from a night shift job. It didn't fit at size 42 and a pocket was re-stitched on with dental floss or something. The best of my jacket stories and what I consider the 1st.

 

[skydog757]

Glad you had a positive experance with JCPenny leathers after your first one, as for me, I didn't ever consider another JCPenny leather jacket after old Number 1.

Well, I didn't want to trash a brand or company based on one (very) poor experience 35 years ago. To be fair, it may not have been a house brand jacket but some other clothing line that was sold by Pennys. Jackets and coats that I have bought the last few years are used or vintage and cost much less than a new one. It has taken some hunting to acquire ones that I like. There's a saying: "A bargain is a bargain; cheap is nothing."

 

[tblay]

Some really great memories here. Fun thread. I hope people will keep posting.

My first leather jacket was from J. Crew. A "bomber." That was before I figured out that my body type just doesn't look right in a boxier, flight jacket cut. Anyway, I kept it for a few years and then donated it to Coats for Kids or Good Will. It's been many since then, much to my wallet's demise. No doubt, though, my interest in leather jackets came from my father, the loss of him at a young age, and the association of him with the smell of of a leather jacket. It took me a long time to figure out that JL and Langlitz and Aero don't make jackets, not dads.

 

[regius]

My first leather jacket was a Harley Davidson cafe racer, had to really push my mother to get me a leather jacket... that was prior to college. It was a soft cowhide but the pattern was off or something, fits very strangely. Sold it almost immediately on ebay and marked the beginning of my ebay business!!! Bought a used ZARA bomber jacket, with two flap pockets situated on chest level rather than waist, but the leather was nice and it was substantial, worn the heck out of it through college in England. Meanwhile, bought some crappy motorcycle jacket on ebay and in stores to try to chase the Terminator look. After the ZARA came another Harley D pocket jacket, Made in USA, snug fit in torso, long sleeves, very cool, but looking back at it now I'd probably dismiss the pebbled cowhide and polyester lining! It had tremendous mobility though! I still remember visiting a Schott retailor in Loughborough and was SHOCKED at how tough and thick the leather was!! It was a 184SM flight jacket. I thought, shit, this is the real deal I ain't never gonna be able to handle this REAL LEATHER JACKET. No sooner did I leave the shop I bought a discount Schott Perfecto on LegendaryUSA. That was it, the beginning of expensive leather jacket buying! My first leather jacket was actually my second, but all I could say is I work it the longest time!

 

[AeroFan_07]

Completly agree with you skydog757 - JCP and Sears along with Montgomery Ward's sold many types of leather jackets back in the 70's - '90's and most were likely sourced through a varity of vendors. Actyally many of the styles that Aero now sells were styles that originally sold through US based retailers in the '30 - '50's and were often horsehide & made in USA. It's interesting how leather jackets seem to be a "nitch" product now, with most store-bought "leathers" being vinal nowadays. People almost think I'm a bit insane (no suprise there for wearing cowhide or horsehide jackets nearly year round.

 

[HPA Rep]

Welcome. I remember the series too. Was it 1982? Definitely a post Raiders vibe.

I think you are right on the era. I only saw one of the Avirex Camel-branded A-2 jackets in person, which was in 1986 and the guy had owned it for a while, so I do think "Raiders" and "Indiana Jones" were the primary forces driving the look, commencing in 1981 and hitting its zenith after "Top Gun" in the summer of 1986.

 

[Benzadmiral]

My jacket is nothing special, not like the custom or horsehide models many of you have. My current and only is an A-2 style from Dillard's that I bought new in . . . 1989. The brown leather has aged somewhat, and the lining needs to be restitched where one of the sleeves joins the body. But it still zips, and the pockets snap, and the jacket still looks pretty good.

(That said, I'm considering buying a pre-owned Lost Worlds "stand-collar" A-2!)

 

[kampkatz]

It was 1965 and I was 14 when I was able to get my first "flight" jacket which was a civilian suede version of a B-3. I wore it until it fell apart when I was about 18. My first real leather jacket was a G-1 issued in 1974 during student naval flight training at Pensacola, FL. The quality was not anything to write home about as it had a plastic-like coating.

 

[RichardS]

First post- Hi !

I think about 1994. I was a penniless law student and me and my girlfriend were in Lakeside shopping centre. We went into a shop called Lakeland and I walked out in a short brown nubuck coat with a green quilted lining (courtesy of the GF) which I pounded to death for the next five years or so. I so wish I had kept that jacket regardless of how it would stand up against some of the coats shown on this site ...

After that I bought a second hand Irvine which I still have and use every winter here in sunny North Yorkshire and I have just got a very nice Wested dark brown Novapelle Raiders jacket tailored which fits like a charm and takes me back to my childhood ! (I kept the girlfriend btw and she is now 'Ye Olde House Dragon' and I had the jacket I bought for her after I qualified re-lined earlier this year as she didn't want to let it go for a new one).

 

[heron163]

First post- Hi !

I think about 1994. I was a penniless law student and me and my girlfriend were in Lakeside shopping centre. We went into a shop called Lakeland and I walked out in a short brown nubuck coat with a green quilted lining (courtesy of the GF) which I pounded to death for the next five years or so. I so wish I had kept that jacket regardless of how it would stand up against some of the coats shown on this site ...

After that I bought a second hand Irvine which I still have and use every winter here in sunny North Yorkshire and I have just got a very nice Wested dark brown Novapelle Raiders jacket tailored which fits like a charm and takes me back to my childhood ! (I kept the girlfriend btw and she is now 'Ye Olde House Dragon' and I had the jacket I bought for her after I qualified re-lined earlier this year as she didn't want to let it go for a new one).

"ye olde house dragon" LOL! welcome to the forum!

 

[yakima]

Back in the 1960's, my dear old Dad, bless him, used to get a weekly paper/magazine called Reveille.

Here's a typical cover:

Not the most highbrow of publications, but the great thing was the pages of adverts in the back.

In 1968, I sent off a Postal Order for around £10, to purchase a "Real Leather US. Army Surplus Flying Jacket".

And so, at age 18, I had my first NOS A2.

I've no idea about which maker it was - I was only 18, and what mattered was having a cool jacket to dance in, and I didn't want a black motorbike item.

This is how we wore them back then, with faded Levis and Driving Gloves!

Happy days......

 

[Peter Mackin]

Mascot motorcycle jacket.black with red lining size 34 lol...bought in a wee motorcycle shop under the bridge in Stockholm st Glasgow....found it at the bottom of a cupboard a number of years ago & gave it to a neighbours son...he still wears it.