The longer I own and love a thing, the more its initial cost is amortized. When I feel the thing has more than paid for itself, I often say “this [whatever] owes me no money!”
This afternoon (in a rare, unorganized, and somewhat peripatetic fit of cleaning), I decided the leather sofa needed feeding (was going to say that it “needs the lotion,” but that is super creepy), and once I’d well-oiled the sofa I figured I might as well use the still-damp cloth to feed my leather jacket.
That got me thinking about why — and when — I’d gotten the jacket in the first place. It had to have been around 1999-2000ish, when I went to San Francisco to see Larry (who had driven down from Portland, where he lived). After he picked me up, I wanted to go immediately to FLAX Art & Design (cannot resist an art store), and (stupidly) I’d left my suitcase and backpack in his truck (either in the bed, which would have been dumb, or in the unlocked truck, which would have been just about as dumb, honestly). In said suitcase I had (amongst other things) a leather jacket, a necessary layer for coolish San Francisco evenings.
(In case that wasn’t enough foreshadowing) Larry’s truck did get broken into and my suitcase and backpack were stolen while I was looking at pens. Boo.
We were staying near Chinatown, so that evening we wandered up Grant. Upon seeing a leather store, I decided to see if there might be something inexpensive that I could make work. Much to my delight, there was! A black leather jacket in an XXL that would have fit me perfectly if my arms had been about 6″ longer than they were (/are. My arms haven’t grown since then.)
Cheap too! It was $35 or $40 because of the big (probably permanent) “Going Out of Business Sale,” and I figured I could just turn under the sleeves for the rest of the vacation so it became mine (and glad I was to have it, as the nights were indeed chilly).
When I got home, I took the jacket to my tailor (Lee’s in Durham), who worked miracles on the regular for me, as nothing off the rack ever fit me correctly.
And work a miracle she did, by cutting the sleeves to the right length and turning the excess inside out and making a cuff! The one issue is that she still needed a small amount of black leather to go *inside* the sleeves so that the lining didn’t poke out from the sleeve bottom.
As it turned out, a gentleman had brought her some leather pants to hem and told her that she could keep the scraps, which my tailor cleverly turned into the 2″ of sleeve lining she needed. You’d think the coat had originally come with cuffs wouldn’t you?
For comparison, here (someone else’s version of the same jacket, albeit in a smaller size), unaltered:
So, yeah, I’ve had my $50 leather jacket (including the cost of the tailoring — she didn’t even charge me for the leather!) for a quarter of a century. And the jacket?
It’s sort of magic. I’ve taken it on most major trips I’ve taken (when is a leather jacket not perfect for travel?) and worn it nearly every chilly fall day. It still looks fantastic (IMHO) and (somehow, miraculously) has been flattering on my at every weight from 125 pounds to 200.
This leather jacket owes me no money.
Thank you black leather jacket. You done good!
Realm of the Lint Queen 