Anyone had an Aero CXL Steer Shrink?

[Peter Mackin]

One of the most egregious little charades that one of the most obnoxious characters to haunt here played - lasted 17 pages, mostly of endless, flatulent posts from Schitzo.

Considering he was a nutcase it was quite entertaining

 

[dan_t]

For the sake of clarity, could I suggest we drop the term 'shrink'?
These jackets don't shrink, they mould to the body and as Ton mentioned, wrinkles set in causing the length to shorten ever so slightly. This is not shrinkage, but rather a normal and expected behaviour of an organic material.
If it concerns a prospective buyer, order a jacket with no more than 0.5" extra in the sleeve length to begin with.

 

[Sloan1874]

"Considering he was a nutcase it was quite entertaining"

Not if you're on the receiving end - ask the Mods here.

 

[Furrowson]

Haha 'flatulent posts'. I'm glad we can't post our farts here, yet.

For the sake of clarity, could I suggest we drop the term 'shrink'?
These jackets don't shrink, they mould to the body and as Ton mentioned, wrinkles set in causing the length to shorten ever so slightly. This is not shrinkage, but rather a normal and expected behaviour of an organic material.
If it concerns a prospective buyer, order a jacket with no more than 0.5" extra in the sleeve length to begin with.

Fair point Dan. 'Shrink' sounds like what happens to a wool jumper in the wash, which is not what we're talking about.

 

[Peter Mackin]

"Considering he was a nutcase it was quite entertaining"

Not if you're on the receiving end - ask the Mods here.

I seem to remember he gave me pelters during that wee episode also a few pms,,

 

[Monitor]

Except that certain leather indeed does shrink. I had a number of jackets all from one maker that shrank within two weeks of wear and I had even more jackets from a number of other makers that all remained exactly the same size as specified.

Some jackets... Or rather the leather some jackets are made of simply shrinks a little bit and creases and folds have nothing to do with it. It just does.
Lay any jacket from Vanson flat and tell me it had become an inch shorter. And these jackets are known to get some extreme creases.

 

[Otter]

Considering he was a nutcase it was quite entertaining

Fun, but not worth the baggage that came with him.

 

[Sloan1874]

I seem to remember he gave me pelters during that wee episode also a few pms,,

Oh, I bet he did.

 

[jacketjunkie]

Except that certain leather indeed does shrink. I had a number of jackets all from one maker that shrank within two weeks of wear and I had even more jackets from a number of other makers that all remained exactly the same size as specified.

Some jackets... Or rather the leather some jackets are made of simply shrinks a little bit and creases and folds have nothing to do with it. It just does.
Lay any jacket from Vanson flat and tell me it had become an inch shorter. And these jackets are known to get some extreme creases.

I can second this. Not all leathers are the same, tanning processes are very different from leather to leather and from maker to maker and there can even be differences between the hides of one batch in how they behave. Talk to the guys at Horween if you are in doubt of how delicate a process tanning is. And some hides do shrink. My Teamster in FQHH lost nearly an inch in backlength and there are no big creases or wrinkles there to account for that. Meanwhile, my Aero HWM in the same leather, FQHH, never changed backlength. Different batch, maybe even just different hide from the same batch from the very same leather can act all differently because no two hides are identical. I am not saying FQHH generally shrinks, I am saying shrinking can occur regardless of maker or leather type and in a if it can happen, it will happen kind of way occasionally a FQHH hide will be affected too.

 

[ton312]

@ton312 Thanks for providing an answer to the original question! Also, in your experience is it true that using steer rather than horse effectively reduces the jacket by ~1/2 a size due to the thickness? That seems like a lot to me. Guess it also depends on the hide.

It makes sense that a certain degree of shortening would occur due to creasing etc. Ken said so himself, which seems to go rather unrecognised for the most part. My query is really whether or not this is just as true in CXL steer, which is thicker and maybe holds creases differently. I also wonder the same about tumbled CXL FQHH.

The only thing I'll say on the past infamous case(s) of shrinkage is that, like I said, apparently Ken himself said that 1/2-1" of shrinkage is likely over time. Numerous people who actually measured their jackets after owning them for some time found this to be the case. They generally didn't care as their jackets still fit.
Schitzo only ever stated that his jacket shrunk by 0.75", which is within this range. His problem was that his jacket was too small to begin with, so any shrinkage was very obvious. We can't say for sure that it did shrink, or not.

The way I see it, adding 1/2" to your desired length, as long as it's still ok like that, is a good move. This is what I can gather from the evidence available to me since I've never owned an aero.
I've also read that companies like aero allow 5% extra for this reason when they make the jacket, but have not seen anything at all to back that up. That would make a 25" jacket 26.25" on arrival. There do seem to be cases of people receiving jackets that are longer than spec'd, but if this is why you'd have thought aero would say so.

When I do own an aero I'll measure the back on arrival and again after 6 months or something.

Cheers

Furrow

Having owned both the steer and FQHH in the same size and the same jacket I can say that hide thickness plays no role in how a jacket fits (between CXL hides anyway). The lining however can. Pictured below is a size 42" bootlegger in brown CXL and a size 40" BL in Cordovan CXL. Both jackets were spec'd w/in 1/2 of each other. The brown jacket was shearling lined and fit like a true 40" whereas the size 40" lined in cotton drill fits more like a modern 42". So much has been made of the differences between these two hides but in my experience there is very little. The only thing of note is that the steer becomes soft much faster and shows a bit more grain.

After a year of hard wear the bootlegger at the bottom still measures exactly as spec'd and received when new. Maybe 1/16" length "loss" in the sleeves.

 

[ton312]

The only time I've ever seen a jacket truly shrink is when forcibly dried after a thorough soaking. I once had a brown Bates that was delivered to my front steps in the afternoon in a box but no bag and it was rained on for like 5 hrs before I got home. It was soaked and like an idiot I threw it in the drier and ruined it. It didn't evenly shrink either, it just totally disfigured the poor thing.

 

[Monitor]

I just love when sellers pack the jacket like that. I mean, any plastic bag would do as it really makes a life or death difference when it comes to leather jacket. I've received a few jackets like that, one was a really old Beck that was on the verge of crumbling apart so you'd imagine the seller would be a bit more mindful when shipping something like that.

 

[ton312]

I just love when sellers pack the jacket like that. I mean, any plastic bag would do as it really makes a life or death difference when it comes to leather jacket. I've received a few jackets like that, one was a really old Beck that was on the verge of crumbling apart so you'd imagine the seller would be a bit more mindful when shipping something like that.

Was a nice jacket too. Probably would've been fine had I just given it a month to dry. It'd be one thing if it were shipped to Arizona like that but Chicago in the winter can be a special kind of Hell on earth.

 

[Furrowson]

Having owned both the steer and FQHH in the same size and the same jacket I can say that hide thickness plays no role in how a jacket fits (between CXL hides anyway). The lining however can. Pictured below is a size 42" bootlegger in brown CXL and a size 40" BL in Cordovan CXL. Both jackets were spec'd w/in 1/2 of each other. The brown jacket was shearling lined and fit like a true 40" whereas the size 40" lined in cotton drill fits more like a modern 42". So much has been made of the differences between these two hides but in my experience there is very little. The only thing of note is that the steer becomes soft much faster and shows a bit more grain.
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After a year of hard wear the bootlegger at the bottom still measures exactly as spec'd and received when new. Maybe 1/16" length "loss" in the sleeves.

Good to know, cheers. The bootlegger looks sharp without a breast pocket.
Sorry to hear of your wrecked jacket.