Club Obi Wan

Out of curiousity, has anybody ever tried ordering a Wested, Flightsuits, or US Wings with a mixed leather jacket? Like, say, having the entire jacket be goatskin, but having the collar be lambskin?

This is completely out of left-field, but after getting my Wested horsehide with a mandarin collar, I've found that the stiff collar keeps rubbing against my neck quite uncomfortably especially since it is HH. Which bizarrely led me to thinking what-if it was soft lamb instead...

Now I suppose if you were to use this logic on an indy jacket, if you were to order a horsehide body for the ruggedness factor, and get a lamb collar, then that way the collar would be billowy, and resemble the flowyness of what we see on screen... the body would be a trade-off since it wouldn't drape the same, but you would have the luxury of lamb and hard-edged goat or horse!

Anyone ever try this? And anyone brave enough to try?

i would think that if the areas are not of the same hide, they may not be able to match the shade of colour exactly or the differing hides may age differently to where the colour difference is obvious over time.

i would be hesitant to order a jacket of this nature unless you also have control of the tanning and finishing process of the hides (which is a pretty tall order).....my 2 cents.....am i wrong?

I wouldn't go for it either, but I suppose if you asked a company such as wested i'm sure they could do it for you (for a price!). It would look strange imho.

Can't you just 'break-in' the collar of the horsehide? Try squishing it a bit etc to soften it up? Otherwise i'd just recommend getting a jacket in an entirely different leather.

EDIT: One thing I would like is a different leather for the pocket. On my goatskin jacket, the goatskin leather pocket thing seems to interfere with the drape. If it was a softer leather (eg/ lamb), it might not interfere nearly as much.

Dre wrote:Can't you just 'break-in' the collar of the horsehide? Try squishing it a bit etc to soften it up? Otherwise i'd just recommend getting a jacket in an entirely different leather.

EDIT: One thing I would like is a different leather for the pocket. On my goatskin jacket, the goatskin leather pocket thing seems to interfere with the drape. If it was a softer leather (eg/ lamb), it might not interfere nearly as much.

Well for those of us who don't want to distress our jackets (mainly me ), squishing the collar would be kind of a scary thought!

But on another note, wonder if any brave souls dare to have goat/horse Wested made with lamb pockets? Hmm....

Dre wrote: EDIT: One thing I would like is a different leather for the pocket. On my goatskin jacket, the goatskin leather pocket thing seems to interfere with the drape. If it was a softer leather (eg/ lamb), it might not interfere nearly as much.

That's exactly what I thought about my horsehide jacket! The facing of the inside pockets, of course also made of the rather stiff horsehide, seems to be quite dominantly influence the jacket's drape.

My "Abner/Fedora" jacket was made with lambtouch cowhide and a nubuck collar, so Peter's done it before.

Regards! Michaelson

Here's a thought that may or may not be feasable.. but maybe the underside of the collar could be made of cloth (cotton lining material), that way you wouldn't be dealing with a double layer of the thick horsehide. I have that done to the pocket flaps on my vintage horsehide A-1, so they are nice and limber. I have to say though, I definately wouldn't consider squishing up and "kneading" the leather to be distressing (the jacket) and certainly not a scarry thing to do..I mean it's leather and is supposed to have some character to it, just IMHO though.

Doug C