Addict Clothes AD-10 in Horsehide

Not really somethign i would wear, but it looks amazing! Construction looks great too!

Winthorpe said:

I’m a huge fan of this style, aka the old 1950s Belstaff Trialmaster, as well. I almost got a Vintage one at Camden Lock market a long time ago (with the same Blue/Grey plaid lining as my AD-10), but being 6’5” sleeve length was an issue. I might give it another shot next time I’m in London. If anyone has recommendations on where to look that would be great.

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You were probably looking at High Star Classics - http://hi-star.co.uk . Worth dropping them a line, though tbh I'd be dubious about your chances of finding a vintage waxed model in a longer size length. There are, however, half a dozen different companies making them as mc jackets now (Speedwear seem to most impressive, price wise,
Richa look good among others), so one of them might do something that would better fit you.

I think H Star mostly now sell at Portobello Road in London since Camden market redeveloped itself as a tourist trap.

Beautiful jacket and really good fit! The leather they use looks very good, I would suspect they are getting it from Himeji

I never should have followed @Edward's link....
Wow!

Thank you everyone.

Edward, thank you for the link -- that looks great!

Me missing out on the Vintage Trialmaster (with decent sleeve length) was back in 1994/95. I think it was a store in one of the single story brick buildings way back in the market (coming from Camden Town station, beyond the bridge and the 2-story brick building). I'll try Portobello Road next time. I realize that it will be a hard find, but the chase is part of the fun...

Edward, with respect to current manufacturers -- how about Claymore (https://claymorejackets.co.uk)?

I came across them a little bit ago while doing some browsing for wax jackets made in the UK. It looks like they are small company in Yorkshire producing made-to-measure jackets of high quality in either waxed cotton or Ventile.

An Indiana Jones-style piece of thread archaeology means I'm posting this as an example of the style. This is the seller's picture of an eBay bargain buy that arrived yesterday.

It's not horse, but cow. But it's tremendously well assembled and seemingly very robust. I'll add my own thread / photos imminently, but the jacket's currently running through the washer.

Anyway :

That looks great! I have never seen this style with a zipper cuff, but I think it works well. Looking forward to seeing more details.

One question, what was the eBay search query you used to find it (if you don’t mind sharing)? I’ve been looking for an older (pre-Italian) Belstaff Trialmaster in XL/XXL and besides some Driza-Bones nothing (non-Belstaff) as interesting as yours ever came up.

The AD-10 looks great in red.

Winthorpe said:

One question, what was the eBay search query you used to find it (if you don’t mind sharing)? I’ve been looking for an older (pre-Italian) Belstaff Trialmaster in XL/XXL and besides some Driza-Bones nothing (non-Belstaff) as interesting as yours ever came up.

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It was something I stumbled upon as I was browsing through reams of leather jackets. I sometimes only filter by size and colour, and see what turns up.

Graemsay said:

The AD-10 looks great in red.

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Agreed!

Winthorpe said:

Thank you everyone.

Edward, thank you for the link -- that looks great!

Me missing out on the Vintage Trialmaster (with decent sleeve length) was back in 1994/95. I think it was a store in one of the single story brick buildings way back in the market (coming from Camden Town station, beyond the bridge and the 2-story brick building). I'll try Portobello Road next time. I realize that it will be a hard find, but the chase is part of the fun...

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Yeah, that was the STables market, that would have been Hi Star. Used to spend hours in there going through the jackets; never bought one, but I learned a hell of a lot about vintage leathers, especially British.

Winthorpe said:

Edward, with respect to current manufacturers -- how about Claymore (https://claymorejackets.co.uk)?

I came across them a little bit ago while doing some browsing for wax jackets made in the UK. It looks like they are small company in Yorkshire producing made-to-measure jackets of high quality in either waxed cotton or Ventile.

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Missed this before. I've never handled one of their jackets, but I hear very good things about them by word of mouth. I very muhc like the look of the 'Patriot' jacket (I rather suspect that if they're made in Yorkshire, it's by a proud Scot!).

barnabus said:

It was something I stumbled upon as I was browsing through reams of leather jackets. I sometimes only filter by size and colour, and see what turns up.

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Thank you. I do that sometimes when I have some time to kill, like waiting for my turn at the dentist...

Here's a quick snap of the jacket on. I'll do more detail stuff when I have more time.

Edward said:

Missed this before. I've never handled one of their jackets, but I hear very good things about them by word of mouth. I very muhc like the look of the 'Patriot' jacket (I rather suspect that if they're made in Yorkshire, it's by a proud Scot!).

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I actually exchanged a couple of emails with the owner of Claymore, Carl Wilson, a couple of months ago. The leather wrapped buckle of my AD-10 broke one day while tightening the belt. To my surprise the core of the buckle was made of plastic.

So I thought about using an antique brass buckle instead, but they were rather hard to source here in the US as I wanted something without any branding (got some from Etsy, but the quality was not great). At that point I sent an email to Claymore asking them if they would sell me one of their buckles (or, if not, let me know who their supplier is). Carl replied the next day and said he would be happy to pop one in the mail for me and only asked to be reimbursed for the shipping. I rounded that up so that he could have a pint (or two) on me at the pub. Carl then mailed me 2 buckles the next day. I told Carl that one day I would stop by in person to get measured up for one of his wax cotton jackets.

In parallel, I sent an email to Satoshi from Addict Leathers (including a photo of the broken buckle). He was down with a cold so that it took a little bit for him to respond. He was very surprised to see that the core of the buckle was made from plastic and said that this was the first time that one of their buckles broke. Their supplier changed the core of the buckle from metal to plastic without telling them. He then asked me to send them the belt (refunding me for shipping) so that they can fix it. Given that I have a great local leather repair lady I suggested to Satoshi to just sent me the buckle and I have it installed over here. That’s what we did and about 1-2 weeks later Satoshi managed to procure one of the original leather wrapped buckles with a metal core and sent it over (via EMS, again blazingly fast, just like my AD-10). Got that one installed my by local leather repair lady and it’s now better than before.

In parallel to all the above, I ordered a 2” soft leather belt from Vanson. That would been one with all (shiny) brass hardware, which wasn’t my first choice yet all that was offered on their website. So I also ordered a black cast iron buckle and black chicago screws. They day after I placed my order Kim from Vanson emailed me to ask if I just wanted a belt with all black hardware. I said yes and Kim replied that they will make one for me. There was a bit of a mix up over the holidays and they accidently sent me an all brass belt. After I contacted Kim she was really sorry, had an all black hardware belt made the same day and sent it out the day after. In addition, they let me keep the all brass belt. Customer service cannot get any better than that.

While I now have probably more belts and buckles than I will ever need, it was great to see this kind of customer service from 3 different continents. In the end all that matters is being able to deal with individuals that care and are proud of what they do.

That's a shame about the buckle, but solid customer service response. Let's hope they get new buckles for their next jackets!

dudewuttheheck said:

That's a shame about the buckle, but solid customer service response. Let's hope they get new buckles for their next jackets!

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I'm convinced they will. From my dealings with Satoshi I got the feeling that he spends a lot of time and energy to get every little detail just right. I could tell that he was bothered quite a bit when he found out that the core of the buckle was changed from metal to plastic.

When I first started researching Addict Clothes I read his entire blog (translated using Chrome) starting with the first entry on 3/2007 (pre Addict Clothes). One series of posts was all about zippers. He could not find any supplier for the kind of zipper he wanted to use for his jackets. So ultimately they decided to create their own zippers (based on vintage designs) and have them made just for them. That is quite an investment for such a small manufacturer and, I feel, demonstrates that they are not willing to cut any corners.

Along those lines, I do really like the main zipper on my AD-10. It's beefy, but not too chunky. It looks just right. On top of that it also works very well. I can zip up the jacket without even looking at the zipper. That was not the case for the Talon zipper that was on my Aero Sheene (I eventually sold it). It was a pain to zip up even when staring right at it (at times I had to get my reading glasses out just to zip it up...).

For me details like those really make a difference. There are already enough finicky things in life as is. I don’t need a zipper on a jacket to be one of them...

Winthorpe said:

While I now have probably more belts and buckles than I will ever need, it was great to see this kind of customer service from 3 different continents. In the end all that matters is being able to deal with individuals that care and are proud of what they do.

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Absolutely - particularly from Claymore, bearing in mind that they were helping you fix a problem with someone else's product. I can imagine that buckle issue must have been an annoyance for Adict: it's a pain when something goes wrong with what you've done, but when someone else had changed spec without telling you and then a problem happens.... Especially in this sort of product field. A lot of buyers wouldn't care about that sort of detail (as long as it doesn't break), but this is one market where it absolutely does matter.

Winthorpe said:

I'm convinced they will. From my dealings with Satoshi I got the feeling that he spends a lot of time and energy to get every little detail just right. I could tell that he was bothered quite a bit when he found out that the core of the buckle was changed from metal to plastic.

When I first started researching Addict Clothes I read his entire blog (translated using Chrome) starting with the first entry on 3/2007 (pre Addict Clothes). One series of posts was all about zippers. He could not find any supplier for the kind of zipper he wanted to use for his jackets. So ultimately they decided to create their own zippers (based on vintage designs) and have them made just for them. That is quite an investment for such a small manufacturer and, I feel, demonstrates that they are not willing to cut any corners.

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It's certainly a level of dedication that is nice to see, especially given what an investment one of these jacket represents.

Winthorpe said:

I'm convinced they will. From my dealings with Satoshi I got the feeling that he spends a lot of time and energy to get every little detail just right. I could tell that he was bothered quite a bit when he found out that the core of the buckle was changed from metal to plastic.

When I first started researching Addict Clothes I read his entire blog (translated using Chrome) starting with the first entry on 3/2007 (pre Addict Clothes). One series of posts was all about zippers. He could not find any supplier for the kind of zipper he wanted to use for his jackets. So ultimately they decided to create their own zippers (based on vintage designs) and have them made just for them. That is quite an investment for such a small manufacturer and, I feel, demonstrates that they are not willing to cut any corners.

Along those lines, I do really like the main zipper on my AD-10. It's beefy, but not too chunky. It looks just right. On top of that it also works very well. I can zip up the jacket without even looking at the zipper. That was not the case for the Talon zipper that was on my Aero Sheene (I eventually sold it). It was a pain to zip up even when staring right at it (at times I had to get my reading glasses out just to zip it up...).

For me details like those really make a difference. There are already enough finicky things in life as is. I don’t need a zipper on a jacket to be one of them...

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That does seem to indicate that they will make a change very quickly. I love seeing people who make/own clothing companies be that passionate and pedantic about their work. These are the people I like to support/buy from.

Would love an update on this jacket