J Leather Investigater
One Too Many
- Messages
- 1,661
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- Wilmington n.c.
Definitely keeper
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Keep us posted on the blackened brown, I’m anxious to see how extreme / fast the Aero tea core developsAfter spending a few hours each of the past couple days in the jacket, I've decided to keep it. Its a snug fit for sure, but I have pretty good range of motion. It's a little limiting when I try to hug myself (hang in there buddy) or reach over to my opposite shoulder, but I think this will become better when the jacket breaks in. I could potentially fix this issues by respeccing the jacket with an action back, but I feel like it would compromise the clean look of the back and in some cases teh action back can bag out over time, especially in a thinner leather.
The blackened brown vicenza is really quite a contrast to CXL, far more so than I had anticipated. It's wonderfully grainy and breathes a LOT better. The only thing I don't love about it is it's smell. Not really unpleasant, but nothing like the enticing aroma of CXL.
Looks great man but your right about it being colourfast I don’t see any brown there yet at all. Sleeves are wrinkling up nicely!I wanted to update this post with some more recent pictures. I took this jacket with me to Chile for 10 days and almost never took it off. I got this jacket in mid April this year but with it being summer in Texas I've had to wear it sparingly in the summer months. I managed to wear the jacket a fair bit in the tail-end of spring but took advantage of it being winter in Chile and brought it with me. Travel really breaks in a jacket like nothing else.
This is my first jacket in the vicenza leather and found it incredibly comfortable but very different from cxl horsehide and steerhide. The leather has a drier feel that takes longer to mold and break in than cxl, but is much more comfortable from the start. I feel like the ridley has really started to break in and drapes better than it did when new. The grain is already pronounced in vicenza but it has gained a lot more character- greater graining texture in the depths of folds and smoothing at crease peaks.
The black-over-brown aspect of this leather was one of the main draws for me when looking for a moto-style jacket. My first leather jacket was an Aero Sheene in black cxlfqhh, and I love it. The teacore started developing in high wear areas pretty quickly. I picked up the Ridley because I wanted a D-pocket jacket and was looking for a lighter leather to add into my rotation. The black surface paint on the BBV leather seems to be incredibly colorfast. After around a month and a half of total wear time there is no brown peeking through any where on the jacket. The black cxlfqhh started showing wear on the zipper piping and wrists after only a handful of wears. It looks like it will take a lot of time and commitment to get a real patina going on the blackened brown vicenza, which I am looking forward to. I would recommend this leather to someone who is looking for something like the Fine Creek Leathers line-up without the accelerating aging-- you'll get the teacore affect and the grain, just over a much longer time scale. I will continue to update this thread with more evolution pictures but it will be a long term project, especially with the 100 degree summers were suffering through here in Texas.
Do you use this jacket for riding?
Thanks! This cut doesn't leave a lot of room in the shoulders, but it feels comfortable with a tee and I like the clean back so I opted to give up a little mobility for it. I think I could have sized up if I was planning to layer with anything but I've got one of Ton's bootleggers for that.How did I miss this? Looks great on you! Maybe a little tight in the shoulders, but perhaps it's because you're layered up. Definitely much better without the belt...
I bought my Ridley (Dark Seal Vic) from Ksozay and I absolutely love it- one of my favorite jackets. Warning- be prepared to get a lot of compliments on it. People ask me constantly where I got my jacket...it's like a walking advertisement for Thurston Bros.
And if you ever decide to sell it...I wouldn't mind having one in the blackened brown!
How did I miss this? Looks great on you! Maybe a little tight in the shoulders, but perhaps it's because you're layered up. Definitely much better without the belt...
I bought my Ridley (Dark Seal Vic) from Ksozay and I absolutely love it- one of my favorite jackets. Warning- be prepared to get a lot of compliments on it. People ask me constantly where I got my jacket...it's like a walking advertisement for Thurston Bros.
And if you ever decide to sell it...I wouldn't mind having one in the blackened brown!
Yep, thats pretty much it. The black coat on the vicenza is a lot more stubborn than the one on cxl, at least in my experience.So, if I'm understanding you correctly, you're seeing more brown/patina from your black FQHH in the same period of time/wear than the BBV. In fact, you're not seeing any brown tones at all yet from the BBV?