Hot water treatment/washing vintage leather

[NoHorse]

I've been eyeing vintage leather jackets on eBay for a while, and I see quite a few that have collars scrunched up, zippers that are pulled out of line by folds in the leather, and all sorts of wrinkles that look like the result of long term storage. I've even seen zipper marks "embossed" on the leather.

In my many years of lurking here I've read about hot water treatment to shape new collars, and also various ways of washing leather jackets. I hope somebody can answer two questions about how this applies to decades-old leather jackets:

1) Can scrunched collars be straightened, and wrinkled jackets be made to hang straight with water treatment on vintage leather? How then - pulling, hanging, laying flat or wearing?

2) How do the various kinds of vintage lining I see respond to (cold water) washing? Can they all handle a wash? What about shearling? What about padded linings - what does the padding (usually) consist of?

What experiences do folks have in buying vintage jackets that need a bit of love...

Many thanks!

 

[handymike]

Yes you can HWT old jackets to stretch out the creases a bit and fix the wonky collars....BUT...some older jackets get a bit stiff afterwards. It really depends on the condition of the leather. Really condition it afterwards (slowly, don't just goop it on or your get white marks once it's dried). Watch out for the liners, not all can handle the water well. Try a steamer on cotton or wool- not satin or rayon

 

[Seb Lucas]

I've soaked jackets in water for 5 minutes and then hung them up in the shade on a warm day, flattening out the wrinkles by hand. Did the job. No shrinking.

I understand steamers do a great job too.

 

[JacketAddict]

I have machine washed a couple of leather jackets - I went to the laundrymat and used a front loader machine with Woolite Darks pn gentle cycle. This was in cold water. I then laid the jacket out on an absorbent blanket and let it dry for several days turning it over every so often. Then I treated it with Lexol. It turned out fine with no adverse effects - one of them was a 10# (expensive) Langlitz - the lining turned out fine also. While it is wet and during the drying process you can work the wrinkles out by hand and you can pull and stretch in strategic places and maybe get a bit more length or width.