New Eastman Leather Clothing "Escape" A-2

[Cocker]

I have owned several originals with rank insignia under the collar. Usually this is done when there are not painted or leather rank insignia on the epaulets to denote rank. Metal insignia on leather epaulets and parachute straps/seat harness were not a good combination so fixing rank insignia under the collar solved this issue.

A bit late about this, but how do you fix a rank insigna under the collar without going through the leather on both sidesand still have it permanently attached?

 

[aswatland]

A bit late about this, but how do you fix a rank insigna under the collar without going through the leather on both sidesand still have it permanently attached?

The collar is made from a top and bottom section of leather. I used the same holes as Eastman had first used to fix an original pair of bars under the collar. The holes only go through the lower section.

 

[Cocker]

I was wrongly under the impression that they were pin-on claps like the Vietnam ones, that have to go through the material. Now that I've seen pictures of the WW2 ones, this makes way much sense!

 

[HPA Rep]

wow to bad you can not get this jacket .....

Yes, it certainly is. But I understand that Gary does the dye/aging work personally and that it is a labor of love, so he cannot afford to wholesale these A-2's.

I also personally dyed the Buzz Rickson's "Cooler King" A-2's we had several years ago and know all too well that this was massively inefficient of my time and a labor of love indeed. Making this sort of job look correctly is really creating a form of artwork and artwork of this type just cannot be justified financially if we charged what the time is worth.

If I could find someone who could do this work affordably, then I'd be open to buying "blank" jackets and performing our own work as we did with BR, so who knows what may transpire down the road. Thank you!