Repro or Original?

[EmergencyIan]

I don’t think it’s sacrilege to wear a 70 plus year old A-2. I think that if they’ve been well preserved that they should ‘live.’ However, my opinion is that 70 plus year old leather jackets are tough to find in well preserved and sturdy condition. However, if you’re lucky enough to own one that is, that fits you, take good care of it while you enjoy wearing it as you feel comfortable. I think they should be worn (maybe often), but carefully.

- Ian

 

[jeremiah]

I agree. If I had an original I would wear it till it fell apart. I am not one for putting things on display much just to have. I certainly respect the collections some of you guys have here but I like to wear the stuff. So much so that I annoy my wife each evening with my squeaky duds.

 

[Smithy]

So I was thinking about this. Can we be sure there is no repro that feels like what a new issues A2 during the war would have also felt like?

What’s hard is leather changes over the course of its life. As the fibers break down and the skin of the leather is touched by body oils, other oils and similar, this both changed the look and the feel. Sometimes it makes it smoother, other times it can actually make it feel stiffer even though it’s quite pliable.

I don’t think we have too many examples of an A 2 repro that has been through so much as well as time. Maybe Ken’s A2 he uses for dog rescues would be a near example.

I still would love for someone here to try and use descriptors to give me an idea of what a genuine war issued A2 feels like to the touch “now” at least.

There's a fair bit of leather flying clothing from all periods at the museum here and the technical conservator was telling me in the past that most of it would have been substantially softer. As well as what you mention, temperature fluctuations and especially extreme ones affect the "feel" of leather over time too apparently.

For me personally I'd always wear a repro rather than an original but I tend to like to do most things in my jackets and am very hard on them. I've gone tobogganing in my Irvin, built a verandah and restored a boat in my B-10 and crawled around the car, garage in all of them, and even played a drunken game of watermelon rugby at a party when I was younger in one of them. If I had an original and especially one with specific and significant provenance then I'd only display it or loan it to a museum on condition of exhibiting and not storage. As I've mentioned here before though, because I want to wear my jackets and do whatever I want to do in them and not baby them, I only want repros. Having done museum work probably affects my ideas on originals too and my lack of desire to own them myself.

 

[Flightengineer]

I agree. If I had an original I would wear it till it fell apart. I am not one for putting things on display much just to have. I certainly respect the collections some of you guys have here but I like to wear the stuff. So much so that I annoy my wife each evening with my squeaky duds.

It is impossible to say better, I agree 100%.
If original in good shape I'll wear it. My LW Foster G-1 is not much younger than the originals A-2 - this lady is already 62 years old, she is in great shape and I wear jacket without worrying.
I have one life and my age is enough to stop postponing everything for later