First Leather Jacket

What was your first "leather" jacket & why ?
Do you still have it? How many do you own now?
Mine was a J.C.P."faux" leather bomber jacket,
after watching "Flying Tigers" (John Wayne).
My education of "leather jackets" began with Avirex &
the MacArthur HH A-2 which I bought in early '80s.

My first leather jacket was a goatskin Cooper A-2, which I quickly sold for an Eastman A-2. I now have 17 original A2s, 5 repros (2 Eastman and 3 GWs), 10 original Irvins, 2 original B-3, an M422A naval jacket and a Cagleco G-1, and ELC B10, and a 1940s G&F windbreaker.

My first leather jacket was an M.Julian from Wilsons leather. Looked like an Irish gangster coat. I bought it when I was 17 and I still have it, No chance I would ever fit in it, but it's still hanging around 17 years later and in remarkably good shape.

I then had a Schott Perfecto for my motorcycle for over a decade, that one I just sold and bought a Legendary Horse Racer jacket for the bike. I have my eyes on a Brown HH Aero for daily use.

Of the original A-2s…are they for display only or do you ever wear them ? Thanks.

I wear all my original A2s, but only occasionally, mainly to airshows as I would not want to damage them. Repro A2s are my daily wearers!

~1998, Hein Gerrick black steer/cow street motorcycle jacket in black.
Since then, many including 3 Aero, 5 Schott, 3 USWings, 3 Avirex/Cockpit, and a few Soviet military coats for reenacting. And one old no name G8.

My first jacket was a bomber jacket, at 9 or 10 years old. My mother bought it for me, as well as 2 others for my 2 younger brothers. It seemed very tough, like cowhide, dark brown, with a dark brown G-1 styled fur collar. It was from Sears or Montgomery Wards, and I believe had a sheepskin lining. Very warm, winter jacket. We cruised the neighborhood, the gang of 3. Over the years, as I outgrew mine, it went down to the younger brother.

First leather jacket was a Re'Vit motorcycle jacket with protective gear to go with my Moto Guzzi. Practical, good quality but quite expensive.

When it has been stolen I went for an Aero Highwayman with cotton drill lining. Same price and a lot of work to wear it in but more than 100% more style.

For the summer I got myself a Nigel Cabourn German flight jacket and a Woolrich Woolen Mills Ranger jacket. Both made from heavy undyed cotton.

This was my first leather jacket


Bought for me by my mother whan I was 14, so over 30 years ago, not particularly good quality but it did save me several times during my biker days. I still own it btw but it's way too small now, just can't seem to part with it.

1983. An impulse buy. Clearance mark-down in a leather jacket store I wandered into in a small town near a bed-and-breakfast my wife and I went to one weekend. Marked down and further slashed to $69. Guy saw me looking at it, and offered it to me for 50.

A Mirage bomber with a quilted satin lining and zip stand-up collar that houses a hood. I beat the crap out of it for a year (and yes, it still fits--but didn't for a decade or two in the past) before returning the next year and buying, at the same clearance time at the same store, a Schott bomber w/a fox-trim hood, an Italian cafe racer, and an Avirex black bomber rough-out.

I wore all of them for about 12 years until I couldn't fit in them and then, a decade later, my 2 sons, one after another, took them and further subjected them to who-knows-what. Now the boys are grown and gone and I'm back to my fighting weight and they all fit (and look) fine. Here's the Korean-made Mirage....

My first leather jacket came along at Christmas 1989, if memory serves. Santa had initially delivered a leather blouson type jacket, which got as far as being tried on so as not to be impolite to my parents, but to my fifteen year old self, a "leather jacket" meant only one thing - a Perfecto-style bike jacket. The blouson was returned the week after Christmas and replaced with what I now think of as a Brando jacket, but back then would have been more likely influenced by Alice Cooper. I don't recall the brand, but it had an almost-black-but-actually-purple quilted lining, and the label carried the legend "Genuine Steerhide: New York" under the brand. I wore that for two years until I grew out of it. For a while after that I had no leather, then about 1995 I was bought another as a twenty-first present (this time, ironically, a modern, heavily-padded and armoured) bike jacket (very much not a Brando) was returned... I hate to reject a gift, but fortunately my parents were eminently sensible about it and didn't want me to feel obliged to wear something I really didn't like (or worse, have it lying in a wardrobe unused) rather than say something. The repalcement was a jacket in a nice black cowhide, very similar in cut and style to an Aero Highwayman. I really wanted a Perfecto style jacket, but at the time for whatever reason they were not readily available in the area in those pre-web days (in retrospect, I may also have been given a bit of a line on that one - Dad in particular always had some odd notion a Perfecto style would get me into trouble, and I was expressly forbidden from wearing one into Belfast at one point). I wore this jacket for a while, then stopped. It sat in my wardrobe for about six years before it got taken out again. It was worn quite a lot between 99 and 2000, and then sold on a year or two later when it really needed relining and a zip replacement. A used Perfecto style jacket followed that, then eventually another (both are still around, although one is now sleeveless and part of a Rocky Horror costume, while the other has been painted up as a replica of Johnny Strabler's Schott 618). Thereafter I discovere the Lounge and a whole slew of leather followed, starting with an Aero AN6552.

In response to seeing Raiders in 1981 (I was 26), I got myself an el-cheapo black leather jacket at a department store for about $40. It was vaguely Indy-ish - waist-length, plain cuffs and bottom, side adjustment straps, shirt-style collar - and was actually pretty nice for a first leather. I followed it up a couple of years later with a classic Schott bomber (brown naked cowhide G-1/A-2 hybrid with fur collar and bogus shearling lining). Then a black cafe racer-ish knockoff from Filene's Basement that I outgrew pretty quickly...

I didn't get an actual spec A-2 until 2001.

My first leather jacket was a rust-colored suede fringed Davy Crockett in 1956...

My mom was always giving away my favorite stuff to my younger relatives, so one day it just disappeared from my closet.

However, during the Summer of Peace and Love (1968) I was able to locate a suitable replacement in Tijuana which served me well throughout the rest of the Hippie Period.

This jacket was worn until I acquired my first ANJ-3 as a reward for finishing the editing on a F-4 Phantom II documentary ahead of time and under budget.

My first "leather" jacket was actually a faux leather jacket when I was about 8 years old! hehe. After that, I got a hand-me-down from my now brother-n-law when I was 15. When I was 18 I purchased my first leather jacket from Easterner's Leather in Seattle. It was a medium brown, soft leather jacket. I was a 38 inch chest back then so I no longer have it. Clearly I have loved leather jackets since I was very young. I've likely had some 50 different jackets pass thru my ownership over the years, with right now I'm sitting at about 15 different leather jackets, mainly cafe racer jackets and mostly vintage ones.

Mine was an "Indy" Hero in striated lambskin from USWings. Nice jacket, not my thing. But it got me the bug, and that's what counts.

Mine was an Australian made version of a Highwayman in black bike leather bought about 25 years ago from a custom maker that's gone. My mum wears it sometimes these days and she's 80. I was trying for an Indy style jacket and in the days before the internet it was the closest I could find although there were some really terrible A2 style jackets in soft fake distressed lamb going around. I think they put me off the A2 in general. In the early 1980's (thanks largely to Indiana Jones) there were so many bad A2 variations (like that shocking Michael Landon, "Highway to Heaven" jacket) that somehow I could never take the A2 seriously. Since then I've owned dozens of leather jackets, uncountable numbers, really. I actually can't remember them all. These days I like the cafe racer best as a design - simple and understated, no messy collars or cargo pockets.

Thanks Seb. I completely shut out all my motorcycle jackets.
I guess I was just thinking about jackets I'd wear in a day basis. But my first was either a Hein Gerrick or Z-Custom in the 80's. Getting' old...

70's used Schott Perfecto (with a cigarette/cigar burn on the right cuff and a slight tear under one arm) that I bought at a used clothing store on Broadway down in the East Village, NYC. Ironically, I paid too much for it even though I was broke as a joke at the time, living in my office to save enough money for a better drums set.

The jacket was stolen while I was playing drums at a gig in Alphabet City. I was playing in two bands at the time: one a punk band, and the other anti-folk. Actually, I played an open mic with Beck at the Side Walk Cafe on Ave A before he made it big.

I still have not found a jacket that fit as well as that Schott, although in retrospect my arms were too long for it. But I loved that jacket more than I will ever love a jacket again, I think. I used to see Joey Ramone on First or Second Ave (near his apartment) wearing a similar jacket, also a Perfecto. Joey was a hero of mine at the time. RIP. His corner of the neighborhood was on my walk to work. He was easy to spot in a crowd because of his height, and in winter, he wore that Perfecto often.

My first leather jacket was a straight zip bike jacket. Must have been around 1979 as I never wore a bike jacket in my early biker days, just a denim covered in badges and a thicker street jacket in winter. Bought a bike jacket from a mate around this time and wore that to work as the bike was laid up as my interest went to cars.
Then I had a girlfriend into bikes, slapped the Matchless back together and one day around 1981 discovered............(Pause for effect)..............The Thrift Shop, Battersea

My first leather jacket was my issued police leather jacket. Still have it.


The leather jacket I wear as much as I can is my 1930's halfbelt. (Will place new pictures soon...)


Cheers,
Andy