What do you think about this jacket ? Morocco leather

[Yace]

Good evening,

I live in Europe and have a budget of 500-600€. I was searching for leather jackets the other day and saw this jacket from a French store : https://champdemanoeuvres.com/produ...ZLlnSd8vqeaWlv2vOdP6CylyK35nyMZ_6TOtqh2kPDKu5

What do you think about it ? I think it looks really good and the brand states that the leather used is cowhide leather from Morocco.

Do you have any other suggestion for this budget ?

Thanks in advance

 

[TartuWolf]

Hey!
Welcome to TFL.
Here's my honest assessment based on your location, budget and product that you have linked:

I'm going to assume that you want to order a new jacket, because the obvious answer to "any other suggestion for this budget" is to buy used / 2nd hand.
As you live in EU your options are rather limited (compared to US folk or JP folk). You can still consider ordering stuff from US / JP if you play smart with value declarations and customs fees, but both shipping and return costs quickly become prohibitively expensive.
Now in terms of 500-600eur budget buying NEW and likely from EU then your options are very very limited.
AVI leather being the most obvious choice, especially for military/flight jackets as that is what they specialize in:
https://www.avileather.com/product-category/leather-jackets/flight-jackets/
Other known EU makers will be over 1000eur.
Rugged West in UK is another option, especially the ready to wear jackets:
https://ruggedwest.co/collections/sample-sale
You can also dive into the Chinese leather jackets rabbit hole if you want to go that route, there are some decent options. Avoid **** from Pakistan.

Now in terms of the jacket you linked I don't see any red flags apart from brand reputation (which includes resale value considerations) and "value" (like you said - what else could I get at this price).
Vegetable-tanned cowhide leather from Morocco - great, but doesn't say much as you can have ****py veg tan cowhide as well (as we have learned from 5* leathers). Looks pretty good from the (heavily filtered) pictures. You could ask them about the thickness, but looks substantial.
Hope the sheepskin is real at that price.
Would like to see the zipper, but no photos of that.
See if the sizing/measurements work for you.
Free shipping - good. Maybe free returns? Even better. Worth giving a shot if you can return it. If you do - make sure to take photos, maybe write a small review here on TFL - then you're contributing as this brand is unknown as far as I'm aware.
Overall seems like the brand makes pretty cool stuff, I like it! But they don't specialize in leather jackets, meaning it's a (french style "workwear") fashion brand.
Personally I'd definitely try AVI leather before trying this.

Good luck!

 

[Bfd70]

I see nothing to justify the price.

 

[whitetail_country]

Be weary of small brands. Morroco isnt known for leather.

 

[3.14nche]

Be weary of small brands. Morroco isnt known for leather.

Well I don't know about that jacket in particular but I was in Morocco a few weeks ago and there are a lot of shops selling small leather goods in the souks in Marrakesh, some I reckon handcrafted.
My wife picked up a hand luggage for the flight back and I a hat. It's no Stetson but for less than 20€ I didn't bother haggling. The bag was not expensive either.

There was also a small shop making leather jackets. I was curious and wanted to have a closer look but (almost) everyone is pretty aggressive on trying to sell you their stuff and I had my share.

While we were in the mountains we came across many herds of sheeps and goats. I'm sure they just don't throw their skins away. Lots of donkeys and mules too to carry their things around though I don't think I have ever heard of donkey leather?

Fun fact, small leather goods translates to 'maroquinerie' in French because according to Wikipedia it was a goat tanning method in Morocco that spread to Europe through Spain in the 12th century.
The word 'cordonnier' (cobbler) also comes from there.
From that article it seems Morocco was pretty early in the leather game.

 

[3.14nche]

Great pictures! I think that leather can come from all sorts of mammals, especially donkeys!

Probably but I don't recall ever seeing anything labelled as donkey leather.
A quick google search comes up with it as an ingredient in a traditional Chinese medicine, and some gruesome articles about that trade, but no leather goods.

 

[Solstice 62]

Here’s how they process the leather in Fez (it stinks!)

 

[Egalter]

I would be weary of the price/value ratio. At that price you can find a lot of real, valuable jackets (Aero of many others) here in the classifieds, instead of a mall fashion-victim jacket.
As @TartuWolf suggested AVI Leather could be a (cheaper, more valuable) option.
My 2¢.

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[Egalter]

By the way...
https://www.thefedoralounge.com/thr...-type-m422a-seal-goatskin-tag-size-44.120481/