J Leather Investigater
One Too Many
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- 1,674
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- Wilmington n.c.
Definitely keeper
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Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk
Keep us posted on the blackened brown, I’m anxious to see how extreme / fast the Aero tea core developsAfter spending a few hours each of the past couple days in the jacket, I've decided to keep it. Its a snug fit for sure, but I have pretty good range of motion. It's a little limiting when I try to hug myself (hang in there buddy) or reach over to my opposite shoulder, but I think this will become better when the jacket breaks in. I could potentially fix this issues by respeccing the jacket with an action back, but I feel like it would compromise the clean look of the back and in some cases teh action back can bag out over time, especially in a thinner leather.
The blackened brown vicenza is really quite a contrast to CXL, far more so than I had anticipated. It's wonderfully grainy and breathes a LOT better. The only thing I don't love about it is it's smell. Not really unpleasant, but nothing like the enticing aroma of CXL.
Looks great man but your right about it being colourfast I don’t see any brown there yet at all. Sleeves are wrinkling up nicely!I wanted to update this post with some more recent pictures. I took this jacket with me to Chile for 10 days and almost never took it off. I got this jacket in mid April this year but with it being summer in Texas I've had to wear it sparingly in the summer months. I managed to wear the jacket a fair bit in the tail-end of spring but took advantage of it being winter in Chile and brought it with me. Travel really breaks in a jacket like nothing else.
This is my first jacket in the vicenza leather and found it incredibly comfortable but very different from cxl horsehide and steerhide. The leather has a drier feel that takes longer to mold and break in than cxl, but is much more comfortable from the start. I feel like the ridley has really started to break in and drapes better than it did when new. The grain is already pronounced in vicenza but it has gained a lot more character- greater graining texture in the depths of folds and smoothing at crease peaks.
The black-over-brown aspect of this leather was one of the main draws for me when looking for a moto-style jacket. My first leather jacket was an Aero Sheene in black cxlfqhh, and I love it. The teacore started developing in high wear areas pretty quickly. I picked up the Ridley because I wanted a D-pocket jacket and was looking for a lighter leather to add into my rotation. The black surface paint on the BBV leather seems to be incredibly colorfast. After around a month and a half of total wear time there is no brown peeking through any where on the jacket. The black cxlfqhh started showing wear on the zipper piping and wrists after only a handful of wears. It looks like it will take a lot of time and commitment to get a real patina going on the blackened brown vicenza, which I am looking forward to. I would recommend this leather to someone who is looking for something like the Fine Creek Leathers line-up without the accelerating aging-- you'll get the teacore affect and the grain, just over a much longer time scale. I will continue to update this thread with more evolution pictures but it will be a long term project, especially with the 100 degree summers were suffering through here in Texas.
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Do you use this jacket for riding?
Thanks! This cut doesn't leave a lot of room in the shoulders, but it feels comfortable with a tee and I like the clean back so I opted to give up a little mobility for it. I think I could have sized up if I was planning to layer with anything but I've got one of Ton's bootleggers for that.How did I miss this? Looks great on you! Maybe a little tight in the shoulders, but perhaps it's because you're layered up. Definitely much better without the belt...
I bought my Ridley (Dark Seal Vic) from Ksozay and I absolutely love it- one of my favorite jackets. Warning- be prepared to get a lot of compliments on it. People ask me constantly where I got my jacket...it's like a walking advertisement for Thurston Bros.
And if you ever decide to sell it...I wouldn't mind having one in the blackened brown!
How did I miss this? Looks great on you! Maybe a little tight in the shoulders, but perhaps it's because you're layered up. Definitely much better without the belt...
I bought my Ridley (Dark Seal Vic) from Ksozay and I absolutely love it- one of my favorite jackets. Warning- be prepared to get a lot of compliments on it. People ask me constantly where I got my jacket...it's like a walking advertisement for Thurston Bros.
And if you ever decide to sell it...I wouldn't mind having one in the blackened brown!
John Lofgren Monkey Boots Shinki Horsebuttt - $1,136 The classic monkey boot silhouette in an incredibly rich Shinki russet horse leather.
Grant Stone Diesel Boot Dark Olive Chromexcel - $395 Goodyear welted, Horween Chromexcel, classic good looks.
Schott 568 Vandals Jacket - $1,250 The classic Perfecto motorcycle jacket, in a very special limited-edition Schott double rider style. Yep, thats pretty much it. The black coat on the vicenza is a lot more stubborn than the one on cxl, at least in my experience.So, if I'm understanding you correctly, you're seeing more brown/patina from your black FQHH in the same period of time/wear than the BBV. In fact, you're not seeing any brown tones at all yet from the BBV?