In the middle of writing my series about where to buy Indy jackets, I’ve had the pleasure of receiving a new Wested Raiders of the Lost Ark jacket today. This is my first new Wested in 20 years and the first time I’ve had a Wested jacket cut in its standard Raiders pattern (not the hero cut), and in lambskin.
The first thing I want to say is, phew, all my measurements paid off and, in turn, whoever put the jacket together stuck to them pretty well. Sometimes, due to the nature of working with leather, there can be variations of up to an inch with custom made jackets and while an inch doesn’t sound like a lot, when it relates to how a jacket sits in your shoulder, or whether it’s on, or slightly above your jeans belt, and so on, it can actually make or break an Indy jacket. Pay attention when measuring yourself… and pray!
The second thing I want to say is… wow. Lambskin is fabulous. Having had Indy jackets in horsehide, cowhide, and a similar-ish A-2 jacket in goatskin, I have a sense of how a leather jacket is “meant” to feel on me – and this blows those pre-conceptions out of the water. It’s buttery smooth to touch and soft to wear. Sitting here typing at the PC while wearing the jacket, it feels no different to wearing a cotton Harrington jacket, for example. It’s still clearly leather – not only does it smell like it, but there’s a genuine weight to the jacket when you take it off. But in terms of comfort, this is insane versus how my other Indy jackets – and leather jackets in general – feel on me, being much heavier, tougher hides.
I mentioned this is the standard Raiders pattern, not the legacy ‘hero’ cut, and that was quite deliberate. This jacket is going to be a daily driver for me, weather permitting. The intent wasn’t to be able to point to striations in the leather and say, “Just like Harrison’s jacket during the Hawaii scenes in Raiders!” or have a really short jacket length or no facing on the zipper or any one of a dozen things that a cosplayer would look for in a screen-accurate jacket. It’s not that those things don’t interest me (I harbour a desire to maybe get Steele and Jones to knock-up a Last Crusade replica based on the Smithsonian jacket, for example), but I just don’t need them in a jacket I want to daily. Indeed, I’m actually looking forward to what kind of natural weathering I will end up with, over time, by just wearing this jacket, as nature intended. Lambskin, by far, is the hide that will distress the best, naturally, and that really excites me.
The ordering process with Wested was almost perfect – I’ve mentioned how the measurements paid off and you can see in the image that the jacket is “just right” in terms of fit, not to mention the jacket was made in about five working days, which is an excellently short length of time to wait for a custom leather jacket. So I have little to complain about, however, because this was a custom jacket and not an off-the-rack (OTR) sale, I did have the option to select side buckles or D-rings as a no-cost option. I selected buckles as the Raiders jacket had buckles… but my jacket arrived with D-rings. Not the end of the world by any means, particularly as this wasn’t meant to be a screen-accurate jacket, as I explained earlier. After mentioning it to Wested earlier today, I now have the option of them sending me some buckles to swap out on my jacket. So all’s well that ends well and the only inconvenience is the… well… inconvenience of not getting the jacket right the first time. It’s a great example of how one small error; one missed note on an order slip, can change a jacket. But between getting the measurements wrong, which affects the jacket permanently, or having D-rings that can be swapped, I know which I’d rather.
To conclude, I went the Wested path, in the face of so many Indy jacket options (I still have quite a few more entries to write in my series of jacket vendors), because on top of the provenance of Wested in the history of the jacket’s design, I think what you get – for the price – is excellent. Specifying the leather type, and some measurements, and some other specs (for example I went with an all-cotton lining rather than the cotton body and satin sleeves of the OTR jackets), and coming out at around $500 Australian dollars (which is about 250 pounds or US$325 by my rough conversion today), for a custom leather jacket made in five working days in the UK, is pretty insane. While jacket aficionados can – and will – point to other jackets on the market that are “better” in their estimation, they’re also invariably double that price, or more. Not to mention, potentially less useable as a daily driver because of the cut of the jacket or the hide involved. Popular variations of lambskin – sometimes called washed or shrunken – make the jacket look more screen accurate, but also make it thinner and more fragile as a hide than the regular lambskin like I received today. So yes, you can pay more, and the jacket in question might tick more boxes than the Wested… but is it as wearable, day to day? There’s no right or wrong answer. Some of the people buying these jackets wear them every other month, often in a full cosplay scenario. They aren’t looking for what I was looking for. For what I was looking for, however, the Wested has delivered in spades. And that’s the No.1 question to ask yourself – what are YOU looking for?