February 8, 2005

11:34 AM

My new leather jacket is wearing very strangely. [+]
posted by borkingchikapa to (3 comments total)

The owner of the store I bought it from seemed strangely eager to sell me it, especially since he was giving me what was supposedly a $700 jacket for $150. It's very warm and I like it a lot, however I haven't had it more than a month and there's already scratches on the leather. It seems like the material tore a bit, revealing the underside to be a weird blue-green color. Shoe polish covers it up just fine, but I'm wondering what the hell is going on since I've never seen anyone else's jacket do this. Am I treating it badly? Did I get ripped off? What's going on?
posted by borkingchikapa at 11:36 AM on February 8, 2005

Take it to a tailor; they should know.
posted by thomcatspike at 11:57 AM on February 8, 2005

Sounds like an inferior shell. Many people like soft leather, but have no desire to break in a new jacket with prolonged use. The two alternatives used to meet demand are to chemically treat the leather, thereby softening the material to a glovelike consistency, or to use leather imported from other countries (think Thailand), which can be cheaper than domestic rawhide. Given the discoloration, you could have a "yak in a vat" jacket, though the blue-green tint could also be a bad dye job. That would also imply something suspect with the manufacturer as well as the distrbution outlets, and could explain why the store owner was anxious to get it out of his inventory.
posted by Smart Dalek at 12:04 PM on February 8, 2005