Wested Custom Raiders (Soft Seal Brown Cowhide)

[Smithy]

I promised Forrest for the Trees to take a few snaps of my Wested and thought it might be worthwhile to make a thread for it.

This is my custom Raiders which I ordered a bit over 5 years ago. I wore it religiously for about 3 months after getting it and then winter hit Arctic Norway and it was swapped in favour of various cold weather parkas and coats. After that I'm ashamed to say I kind of forgot about it and it's only been worn very sporadically since then, as I've been wearing A-2s for the most part and an Aero Barnstormer. That though has changed as I've become a bit sick and tired of A-2s, my wife intensely dislikes them because of the knits, and they don't really flatter my body shape terribly. Hence the Raiders has been dragged out and I'm honestly flabbergasted and kicking myself why I haven't been wearing this more - it fits me spot on, the missus loves it (now that's a major thumbs up - happy wife, happy life ) and they're just such practical, comfortable and versatile jackets.

As I mentioned I ordered this from Wested in autumn 2015, it's a custom one and it's Wested's "soft seal brown cowhide" which I believe is sadly no longer available. I've got quite a few far more expensive jackets (Aero, ELC, etc) but the leather on this is really lovely, it's very strong but is soft and drapes beautifully. It also wears very nicely on the high points and there's some wonderful graining popping out on some of the panels.

Anyway without further ado and gasbagging here she is...

[Forrest For the Trees]

Looks great! The color and texture of that cowhide looks fantastic. I see "Brown Cowhide" still listed on their site. Maybe it is the same?

[Smithy]

Looks great! The color and texture of that cowhide looks fantastic. I see "Brown Cowhide" still listed on their site. Maybe it is the same?

Hi FFTT and thanks

I'm not sure if the current brown cowhide is the same as the soft seal brown cowhide but I imagine if you're interested, Wested would be able to confirm. It really is superb leather, has the strength of cowhide but has a nice soft drape without any stiffness. I chose it after seeing another guy's jacket which was either posted here or at The Raven and which I loved the look of. Very pleased with how it turned out.

[Illinois_Jones]

Yeah, it could be a lens or lighting thing, but yours appears to have a more copper tone to it while the regular cowhide Wested offers seems to have a greyer tone to the brown from the few I've seen in person. Yours definitely more fits the seal brown label, whereas the regular cowhide tends to look a bit more bistre -- sort of an ashy brown, I guess.

It's a nice jacket. I keep considering getting one in cow. My cow USW jackets are nice but pretty darn heavy.

[Smithy]

Yeah, it could be a lens or lighting thing, but yours appears to have a more copper tone to it while the regular cowhide Wested offers seems to have a greyer tone to the brown from the few I've seen in person. Yours definitely more fits the seal brown label, whereas the regular cowhide tends to look a bit more bistre -- sort of an ashy brown, I guess.

It's a nice jacket. I keep considering getting one in cow. My cow USW jackets are nice but pretty darn heavy.

Hi Illinois Jones. Mine definitely has no grey in the tonality so for FFTT it sounds like their regular current cowhide isn't the same as the soft seal brown cowhide. That's a shame if it's unavailable now as it's a great looking leather. I've had a few cowhide jackets before and I like how this has a really nice soft hand to the leather so it drapes well. It doesn't have the stiffness that a lot of the cowhide jackets I've had have had.

[Mulceber]

It looks great, Tim! What about some fit pics?

[Smithy]

It looks great, Tim! What about some fit pics?

I'll see what I can do Jan

[Forrest For the Trees]

Yeah, that is a really great color. Funny, when I first started buying Indy jackets, I had no idea there were so many variations of brown leather! I had a goatskin Wested in Authentic brown, which was nice, but tilted more toward the gray/yellow end of the color spectrum, not that warm reddish brown you have. Love it! Also, cool to see a Wested standard jacket. Just a real functional no-nonsense version of the jacket. We get so caught up in screen accurate hero specs, that the standard Wested gets somewhat overlooked. The collar shape on yours is great too.

[Smithy]

Yeah, that is a really great color. Funny, when I first started buying Indy jackets, I had no idea there were so many variations of brown leather! I had a goatskin Wested in Authentic brown, which was nice, but tilted more toward the gray/yellow end of the color spectrum, not that warm reddish brown you have. Love it! Also, cool to see a Wested standard jacket. Just a real functional no-nonsense version of the jacket. We get so caught up in screen accurate hero specs, that the standard Wested gets somewhat overlooked. The collar shape on yours is great too.

My approach to Indy gear is I love the look of it but I want it to be functionally useable first and foremost and for me personally that's more important than 110% screen accuracy hence why I went for the standard jacket over the hero when I ordered it. Maybe down the line I'll get a hero too if the bug bites me but for now I'm very happy with the jacket. Just got back from dropping the kids off at school and doing a spot of shopping wearing it in a snow shower which made me very happy as over all the years of jacket collecting I've found rain, hail, sleet and snow the best things to get some grain and character going

And yeah the brown thing, I had no idea until I got interested in A-2s. You start off thinking there's only two shades to the things: russet and seal, and then suddenly when you get into them it dawns on you that there's actually myriad variations of the two

[marker2037]

Jacket looks great! Great looking leather and color. Wear it in good health!

[Smithy]

Jacket looks great! Great looking leather and color. Wear it in good health!

Thanks Marker