Just to throw in my two cents, I've had my Wested Novapelle for about 10 months now, and I've noticed some change.
Now, taking my Wested Horsehide that I've had for 19 months now into consideration, I've given both the Horsehide and the Novapelle the same amount of babying, applying Pecards either after it rains, or at the end/start of each season, yet they've both aged differently.
First, starting with the Horsehide, I've taken it on almost every trip that I've gone on. It's been worn with quite a bit of frequency, and yet, the texture and color of that jacket is virtually identical to the day I first recieved it. Shape-wise, it has conformed to my frame very nicely, although very subtley, and still retains more than a few traces of it's original shape.
Now, if you're wondering where I'm going with this... The reason why I brought up the Horsehide was to point out the differences to my Novapelle, which is only half as old as that Horsehide.
The Horsehide has gone through ALOT of changes ever since I got it. The first time I felt it, it had a velvety texture to it, and the leather had an intentionally uneven and "rusty" appearance. After a quick session of Pecards in the same week, it lost that rusty-brownish color and became almost completely black, and somewhere along the way, it developed a very smooth, new-leather furniture feel in place of that velvety feeling.
I wore it for the end of Winter/Spring season, then around late April/Early May, finally retired it for the Summer.
One thing I notice is that when you wear your jackets religiously and finally put them away, that long period during which they are in closet-retirement will refresh your perspective on them. You'll notice things about them that you didn't use to when you wore them everyday. The same goes for friends that you haven't seen in a long time...
When I pulled the Horsehide out of the closet to give it a Pecard once over in preperation for Winter, the jacket looked almost brand new, and I couldn't believe this had faithfully served me for almost two years.
Putting it away, I then pulled out the Novapelle, and was shocked at how it had aged. The jacket still had that black-ish color, but now certainly looked the part of an Indy jacket. It looked three times as old as my Horsehide jacket, with creases covering the back panel.
In those areas of great stress or 'bunching' (i.e: the area by the sidestraps, the area by the zipper, the bottom portion of the back panel), the leather had developed a very puffed-up, cotton-ish feeling, as if it were suffering from some severe leather bruising. The leather overall on the jacket also now felt alot looser than what I had remembered, and I was afraid that if I rubbed the Pecards on it too hard, it might rub a hole into the leather...
That's just my own experience with the matter, and I'm not trying to promote horsehide over cowhide, but rather, I'm just calling it as I see it. In fact, if you ask me, I'm not a big fan of Horsehide Indy jackets, since they don't get the drape the way I like, nor were any production-used jackets made from that leather; two factors that are important to me.
The novapelle certainly looks the part of an original-trilogy jacket (since the KotCS jacket was thicker), but I suppose if what I experienced was normal, then the tradeoff is rapid aging... though that may not be such a bad thing to some gearheads?
