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New Aero Premier Highwayman arrived

Fanch

I'll Lock Up
Messages
4,490
Location
Texas
The lining was the black cotton. I was considering all kinds of tweeds but the test fit jacket Thurston Bros sent me had this lining, and for some reason I just really liked the simplicity of it.

I too like the cotton drill - tough as nails, substantial, and doesn't "grab" in the sleeves. Only my Teamster has moleskin body shell lining; everything else is cotton drill. I agree with what you say regarding the brown FQHH. It's not stiff at all and a pleasure to wear, definitely not like "mail armor."
 

IXL

One Too Many
Messages
1,284
Location
Oklahoma
I like this jacket and find nothing visually wrong or unflattering about the collar. It is just a feature of this style, I believe.
 

tropicalbob

My Mail is Forwarded Here
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3,954
Location
miami, fl
This is the first one I've seen in the wild. It looks like the yoke is higher than on the regular HWM: is this so? I really like the look.
 

Superfluous

My Mail is Forwarded Here
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3,995
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Missing in action
Fantastic jacket and fit!!! Depending on what happens this weekend at Inspiration, I may pull the trigger on the exact same jacket early next week in black Vincenza.
 

Dr.Seuss

One of the Regulars
Messages
113
Location
Denver
I too like the cotton drill - tough as nails, substantial, and doesn't "grab" in the sleeves. Only my Teamster has moleskin body shell lining; everything else is cotton drill. I agree with what you say regarding the brown FQHH. It's not stiff at all and a pleasure to wear, definitely not like "mail armor."

Supra and concur! I found the black drill to work in a variety of seasons and temperatures. Although, the olive gab is my current favorite for a softer feel; "pajama like." My Maxwell FQHH was as heavy as all get out. The FQHH Teamster, neither stiff nor armor; seemed broken in from the inception.

RM, Very nice; fits you well.
 

Edward

Bartender
Messages
25,082
Location
London, UK
Nice .. interesting new side adjusters ...

I think they've been using these for a while; my Dustbowl came with them in August 2014, and I think they were fairly common by that point. I think Aero rfedid them after the big thread on here with folks talking about how to stop slippage and such. They do seem on the ball, market-wise.

Looks way better than a "sized down" highwayman in my opinion.

Absolutely. While inevitably most of us will be a size up in the prewar designs than post-war, I've always taken a dim view of people thinknig they can get a jacket like a slimmer Highwayman by wearing a Hgihwayman that's too small. I remember being about twenty-one and trying on jackets (much cheaper jackets, made in Pakistan at the time) vaguely along the same design lines as the Highwayman. I wanted one that was a neater fit (I was probably trying to ape Sid Vicious' Lewis Dominator), but it just didn't look right when I tried a size down. That's because it wasn't a slim-cut jacket: it was a boxy jacket being worn too small, and it looked it. I ended up buying the one in my correct size, though I didn't wear it much for the first five years. That's another story, though!

The fit looks spot on for the way you intend to wear the jacket over a shirt.The length looks good also. I would be interested how the premier HWM is cut differently than a sized down standard HWM.

It would be interestintg to see them laid out together and compare directly. There'll always be a world of a diffference, though, between a slim-cut jacket and a boxy-fit jacket that's being worn too small. I suppose it would be like buying a pair of straight cut jeans a couple of sizes smaller trying to get narrower legs, instead of buying a pair of drainpipes.
 
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16,851
rmconner80, or Superfluous, could you please tell me what is the collar point length on the Premier range jackets?

Edward, heh, missed your comment but aye, Sid did wear his Dominator rather well, even though the jacket may have been a size or two too large on him. :)
 

Edward

Bartender
Messages
25,082
Location
London, UK
rmconner80, or Superfluous, could you please tell me what is the collar point length on the Premier range jackets?

Edward, heh, missed your comment but aye, Sid did wear his Dominator rather well, even though the jacket may have been a size or two too large on him. :)

I've long suspected that Sid's jacket might well have been an old Rocker jacket he picked up second-hand; for all their celebrity, the Pistols boys didn't have much in the way of money. I also remember a story that a leather jacket and the red Ted drape that Sid was pictured in in the early days were exchanged between Sid and Jonesy.... can't for the life of me recall who started with what, but if Sid got that Dominator from Steve Jones, it's very probable some rocker is still mourning the Lewis that was stolen off the back of his chair while he went to the toilet in the pub...
 
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16,851
I always thought this, too, Edward. The jacket is decorated in a typical Rocker fashion and Sid doesn't strike me as the sort of fellow who'd invest too much time and effort into arranging all these studs this carefully - lots of love went into this jacket and only riders are this neat when it comes to their precious gear. And another thing that supports this idea is perhaps the fact that Sid never bothered to decorate his Perfecto in an even remotely similar way. He just stuck a badge or two but that was it. There's an image I found some time ago, can't remember where but luckily I saved it... My money's on this being someone else jacket.



lol at mourning Rocker! lol
 
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Messages
16,851
...not to mention there's even a small Triumph pin which Sid would have no reason to pin to his jacket. Lovely Totenkopf badges, by the way. I hope that's not too much Pu|\|k talk? lol
 
Messages
11,168
Location
SoCal
Jonsey has the greatest Radio show: Jonsey's Jukebox.
He plays great music and tells some great stories of the old days (or he did a couple years ago)
http://jonesysjukebox.blogspot.com
 
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Peacoat

*
Bartender
Messages
6,465
Location
South of Nashville
Nice jacket. I agree about he Aero/Horween FQHH not being that heavy. They break in quickly, all except the collars; they are the last to soften up. As others have said, get int wet and shape it. The chaps down under seem to prefer it rolled under a bit, while the rest of the world prefers them rolled out.

As you noted, Wade/Carrie with the fit jacket is the only way to go. Congratulations on a good looking jacket with a good fit.
 

jacketjunkie

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,321
Location
Germany
Jacket looks great!

I think the thickness of FQHH is not consistent. My FQHH Teamster has the thickest leather I have ever worn. Thicker than Johnsons 3.5 oz naked cow and thicker than Vansons Competition Weight leather. The FQHH Windward I received more recently on the other hand had thinner leather than all jackets above.
 
Messages
16,851
You're right, jacketjunkie - none of my Aero jackets were consistent in leather thickness. My Aero Police jacket was, and still is, the heaviest and stiffest jacket I've ever seen. That thing cannot get broken in.
 

Edward

Bartender
Messages
25,082
Location
London, UK
Well, you have to bear in mind that we're talking about an organic product here. Two identical wooden guitars can sound wholly different from eatch other because they came, ultimately from two different trees, even if the same species... Two horses can be as different in their hide, sometimes, as a horse and a steer....

...not to mention there's even a small Triumph pin which Sid would have no reason to pin to his jacket. Lovely Totenkopf badges, by the way. I hope that's not too much Pu|\|k talk? lol

Thanks for that photo, I'd not seen that one before. Presumably, then, it was the Perfecto he got in America (the photos of the Pistols at Heathrow, leaving to go on that ill-fated US tour, all show Sid in the Dominator) Sid was buried in.... the lore all says it was "his leather jacket", but didn't specify which one.

Yes, it does look very much Rocker in tone. The London pvnks were far from the first to adopt Nazi regalia as a means of signalling their rebellion from polite society (it was never about sympathising, just scandalising your folks) - it was common among rockers ten or fifteen years earlier. I guess the Rockers were the kids growing up in the early sixties eras of the classic British WW2 films, and to them the Nazis were the cool, cinematic villains as much as anything... Maybe there were a rare few who saw it as imitating the warrior wearing trophies of his fallen enemies in some way.... There's also the Death or Glory lancers badge, a common motif among rockers far more so than pvnks. Sid later wore one on the Perfecto - clearly not, as I'd once thought, the one that was on the Dominator, as there it is...

The clincher on the details is the presence of several bike themed badges - I can make out a BSA, a Norton, and a TriBSA, and there are others I can't quite read owing to light shining on the in the photo. The London pvnk scene weren't averse to bikes, so much as they couldn't afford 'em.... they mostly took the tube or the bus. It does seem unlikely that Sid would have bothered to collect bike-themed badges. Also, by the late 70s the British bike manufacturers were mostly crashing and burning; from he early 70s onwards, Japanese bikes were reliable, cheap and considered stylish. Had Sid decided to put abike jacket together at that point, it would have likely have had Japanese brands on there instead of or as well as the Brit ones. That said, afaik the only time sid was ever on a bike really was for the duration of shooting a couple of scenes in The Great Rock'n'Roll Swindle: he briefly sits on a BSA in the bedroom during the Somethin' Else sequence, and later is seen riding a Honda CB350 (some say it was a CB750, I don't have a copy of the Swindle on DVD to check). No idea whether he rode it 'for real' in that sequence.


[Do please post this photo to the Rocker Jackets thread, it's quite the find!]

Jonsey has the greatest Radio show: Jonsey's Jukebox.
He plays great music and tells some great stories of the old days (or he did a couple years ago)
http://jonesysjukebox.blogspot.com
 

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