Original Jackets vs. Repros; what are your thoughts?

[Pilot]

What an incredibly decadent royal blue collar. It looks so luxurious, perhaps too luxurious, for a flight jacket.
Paired with that royal blue lining, good golly.
Who even made that jacket? Is that an original?

We make them. Apologies for the bad light, intention was to show the hide and not to shine on the collar and liner...
Both are more greyish in reality...
.....
After a bit of wearing, they ( ours) look like these originals.
Here another original, same colors.. was already discussed in another thread: https://www.aeronantiques.com/en/germany/787-wwii-german-luftwaffe-pilot-leather-flying-set.html
...or...

 

[Centaurus3200]

personally, i've never worn my original star sportswear A2 in public. only around the house to "play dress-up" ;-)

reasons being the knits should be darned and i can't explain it...i just feel something will happen if i wore it even occasionally. BUT i do not think twice about wearing my 1964 ralph edwards G1. i wore it pretty frequently in fall and winter (when it wasn't raining). by contrast to the A2, that thing is A BEAST. i just don't worry about it. i really feel the "perfect" leather jacket is the G1. it just does everything right.

if the 1950's G1s are similar in materials and construction to mine, heck, i'd wear those too. which is interesting, as at a certain point, an early 50s G1 is only like 6-7 years newer than an original A2... so why the difference in treatment?

 

[mulceber]

For whatever my opinion's worth, Centaurus, if you're not comfortable wearing the original (and that's fine!), you might consider buying one of Shawn's forthcoming repros of the Star contract. That would be a way of getting the experience without risking the jacket.

 

[MaydayWei]

personally, i've never worn my original star sportswear A2 in public. only around the house to "play dress-up" ;-)

reasons being the knits should be darned and i can't explain it...i just feel something will happen if i wore it even occasionally. BUT i do not think twice about wearing my 1964 ralph edwards G1. i wore it pretty frequently in fall and winter (when it wasn't raining). by contrast to the A2, that thing is A BEAST. i just don't worry about it. i really feel the "perfect" leather jacket is the G1. it just does everything right.

if the 1950's G1s are similar in materials and construction to mine, heck, i'd wear those too. which is interesting, as at a certain point, an early 50s G1 is only like 6-7 years newer than an original A2... so why the difference in treatment?

It's all in our head, mate.
A combination of factors, really.
What is the difference, either in principle of practice, as to why we are far more inclined to wear a (slightly) used jacket over a completely NOS one?
What really is the difference between the A2 and the G-1?
All down to our personal psychological hang-ups be it about the history of the A2, the reverence of WWII, etc. etc.
Just good to know, that amongst others, we are not crazy to feel the way we do about originals.