Garage Leather Jacket

Garage Jacket

Handmade cowhide · 1930s design · Half belt with buckle tabs

Guaranteed for life

Front, side and back. Note, on the right, the half belt and the two tabs that cinch the waist.

Everything you ask of a leather jacket

Looks, comfort and years of hard wear. The Garage Jacket is the leather jacket from before the flight jacket: the one that hung in the garage and went out on the street every day, in the design that workers and motorcyclists wore in the 1930s. A sport collar that closes all the way up, a wide tooth metal zipper, a welt chest pocket for the pen and the sunglasses, two hand pockets at the right height to shove your hands in with it zipped.

The cut is trim, fitted at the waist, to go over a shirt or a tee. And the half belt at the back, with a buckle tab on each side, does what no modern jacket does: cinched, it draws in the waist and opens the chest; loosened, it falls straight. It went over the sweater in winter and over the shirt the rest of the year. It still does.

Natural cowhide, tanned and then washed piece by piece, to arrive with the look of a jacket already worn: visible grain, uneven sheen, lighter creases at the elbows, the collar and the hem. Cotton lining, no padding to stifle. Cuff with a metal button, to wear over a glove.

Below the drawing, the back: the cut yoke and the half belt with its two tabs.

On the left, Tobacco. On the right, Coffee. Same jacket, same leather, two tones.

Two colors

Tobacco is the medium brown, the tone of saddle leather, which lightens at the creases toward caramel. Coffee is the dark brown, almost black in the shade and brown in the light, with the wash lightening the creases the same way. On both, the leather darkens a little more where the hand grips and lightens where it folds, and no two jackets arrive alike.

Goes with raw denim rolled at the hem, with the Red Tornado trousers and with the Tailored Pleated Corduroy Trousers; with the Blue Ridge boot or the Workshop derby. It is the piece that holds a city winter without turning into a coat, and that lives on the hook by the door from October to April.

Made by hand

Every jacket passes through the hands of a craftsman from start to finish. The hide is chosen and cut one by one, because leather does not come on a roll and every hide has its own marks. The pieces are sewn with double stitching on the seams that carry the body. And the wash is done after assembly, jacket by jacket: it is what brings out the grain, makes the sheen uneven and lightens the creases.

That is why no two come out the same. Yours will keep changing where it folds, and ten years from now it will have the shape of your body.

Made for life

A natural leather jacket does not wear out: it molds. With use it softens at the shoulder and the elbow, darkens where the hand grips and lightens where it folds. The jackets of this design that survived from the 1930s are still being worn today, and that is why the design stays the same: there is no plastic part and no finish that peels. What ages is the leather, and leather ages well.

The parts that take the strain are the ones that get replaced: any cobbler can swap the zipper and the cuff button, and the cotton lining can be remade decades later without touching the leather. This is the jacket you do not buy twice. It is the one you hand down.

Coffee and Tobacco, on the wide hanger where it should live.

Choose your size

A leather jacket does not stretch and does not shrink, so the size has to be right the first time. The cut is trim, made to go over a shirt or a tee, with the half belt looking after the waist. Choose by your chest, measured at armpit height, and use the reference column as a check.

Measurements in inches / cm. Garment chest = full circumference of the jacket zipped. Fits chest = body range the size fits well, with room for a shirt underneath. Fit reference = height and weight of the person who tried on each size.

How to measure. Standing, wearing only a tee, run the tape around the torso at armpit height, at the widest point, keeping the tape level across the back. To check against a jacket you already own, lay it zipped on a table, measure armpit to armpit and double it: compare with the Garment chest column.

Between two sizes, take the larger: the half belt adjusts the waist, but a tight shoulder and chest in leather cannot be fixed. To wear over a thick sweater, go up one size.

Made for the dirt road and the cobblestone street.

Care

• Do not wash. Dry dirt comes off with a damp cloth; a stain, with mild soap on the cloth, without scrubbing
• Once a year, leather conditioner in a thin layer, with a cloth, letting it absorb before wearing
• Store on a wide hanger, in an airy place, out of plastic
• If it gets wet, dry in the shade, away from heaters; leather that dries in heat cracks
• The wash lightens more where it folds. That is part of the piece, not a defect