Fashion · The Leather Edit
The Leather Jacket
Buy the shape, not the season. Four of them, and the house matters less than you'd think.
Buy the shape, not the season. Four of them, and the house matters less than you'd think.
Here's something odd. Leather shows up on the spring trend list this year. It isn't on the fall one. It isn't on resort either.
A colour does that because it's been and gone. Leather does it because it was never really a trend to begin with — it just sits there, season after season, while everything else cycles past.
What's changed is the cut. Quieter: cropped lengths, a gently cinched waist, smooth leather instead of anything overtly tough, hardware kept to almost nothing. Less attitude, more lived-in. These jackets don't shout any more — they make whatever you put them over look better.
Which is where the mistake comes in. Buying a second one because the length is different, or the house is. You're collecting a shape at that point, not filling a gap. One leather jacket, chosen properly, is the whole wardrobe.
So the rule is the shape, and there are only four worth knowing. The biker is the 1928 one, with the asymmetric zip and the lapels and usually a belt, and it still reads as confidence before you've said a word. The bomber is softer through the body, gathered at the hem, and goes over more things. The cropped stops at the waist and exists to make a high-waisted trouser look deliberate. And the tailored version is leather cut like a blazer, which is the one that goes to work.
The shape itself has barely moved in a century. Irving Schott made the first proper leather motorcycle jacket in 1928 and sold it at a Harley dealer on Long Island. He named it the Perfecto, after his favourite cigar. And that off-centre zip everyone still copies? It was there to block the wind. Loewe, meanwhile — which turns a hundred and eighty this year — has been working leather since a group of artisans opened a workshop on calle Lobo in Madrid in 1846.
This isn't an edit for anyone shopping a leather moment. It's one decision you only have to make once — the biker, the bomber, the cropped and the tailored.
Two of these twenty are the ones I would buy. The Khaite Hamett, because a leather jacket that is not black is the harder and far more interesting choice. And the Prada biker, because it is edgy and effortlessly chic at once, which almost nothing manages.— K.W., Editor-in-Chief
Tailored leather, the shirt you already wear with a blazer, trousers. Leave the blazer at home.
Biker, white t-shirt. That's the outfit. Don't add a second piece of attitude.
Bomber over a silk skirt, or cropped leather on a full white look. Smooth, not tough — the contrast is the point.
Every piece in the edit — tap to shop.
The original, and still the one that does the most work. Wear it over a white t-shirt and stop there. Loewe, Prada, Magda Butrym, Acne Studios and Nour Hammour.
Nappa lambskin, the asymmetric zip, and a belt at the waist you can actually pull. From the house that has been working leather since 1846.
Never quite the obvious version of anything. The one if you want edge without costume.
Panelled rather than plain, which is the whole difference.
The logo is the point. Buy it if you want it read from across the room.
Full-grain, made in Turkey, from a house that still works with the same family atelier in the Marais where its first jacket was sewn.
The plain one, if the panelling is too much.
Softer through the body, gathered at the hem, and easier over more things. Good with denim, better with tailored trousers on the days a coat is too much. Brunello Cucinelli, Khaite, Loewe and The Row.
Smooth leather cut in Italy, one flap pocket, nothing else going on. Italian, and it looks it.
Nappa lambskin, Italian, with a stand collar and a guard you can unclip. Not black — which is exactly why it is interesting.
A balloon silhouette with the draping gathered by hand across the back. Buy it if you want the jacket to be the event.
The one nobody will comment on. For The Row, that is rather the point.
Tap any piece below to shop the whole edit.
This year's cut, and it exists for a high waist. Wear it open, ending at the waist, everything below it long. Prada, St. Agni, Loulou de Saison and ARMA.
The expensive end of the length, and the cleanest.
The zip version, and considerably less than the Prada.
Short, plain, and the easiest of these to wear on a Tuesday.
Real leather, the least expensive thing in this edit. Wear it as though it cost what the Prada cost.
Leather cut like a blazer, and the half that goes to work. Over a shirt, with trousers, instead of the jacket you'd normally reach for. Loewe, The Row, Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta, Max Mara and Nili Lotan.
The most obviously fashion of the four tailored ones.
If you want the house to show in the shoulder.
Lambskin with ribbed-knit trims, a concealed placket, and a lining of pure silk you never see and only feel. Made in Italy. Over a shirt, instead of a blazer.
Patch pockets, no hardware. The quiet one in this group.
The considered middle, and the one that will go with what you already own.
Same job as the Saint Laurent, without the invoice.
Every piece in this edit, by the houses behind it. Explore them all.
Buy the shape, not the season. A leather jacket is one of the very few things you will own that looks better in ten years than it did in the shop.— ESVRA