Leather jackets will always be in style! No fad fashion garment here!
Leather is a luxurious, luscious material known for its rich visual appeal, durability and flexibility. Leather is created by tanning animal rawhide and skin, often cattle hide. Leather can be produced at manufacturing scales ranging from cottage industry to heavy industry. While leather is used for vast amounts of clothing items (shoes, hats, jackets, pants, skirts, dresses, belts and gloves) leather jackets create a look and feel to the wearer that is rich, chic, hip and trendy.
For a jacket that is dazzling and always a hit, go for the lovely leather look.
Today, most real leather (not synthetic leather materials) is made of cattle skin, but many exceptions exist. Lamb and deerskin are used for soft leather in more expensive apparel. Deer and elk skin are widely used in work gloves and shoes. Pig skin, buffalo, goat, alligator, snake, ostrich, kangaroo, ox and yak skins are also used to make leather. Leather jackets provide an ultra-chic look while adding oomph and pizzazz to your overall appearance. There is something about leather garments that add a bit of sass and spice to your overall fashion ensemble. A true mix of naughty and nice.
Popular Types of Leather for Clothing:
- Full-Grain: Leather that hasn’t been sanded, buffed or snuffed to remove imperfections on the surface of the hide.
- Top-Grain: Leather of the second highest quality. The ‘split’ layer has been separated away, making the leather thinner and more pliable than full-grain.
- Corrected-Grain: Any leather that has an artificial grain applied to its surface.
- Split: Leather created from the fibrous part of the hide left once the top-grain of the rawhide has been separated from the hide.
- Buckskin or Brained Leather: A tanning process that uses animal brains or other fatty materials to alter the leather. The result? A supple, suede-like hide.
- Patent Leather (My Favorite Type of Leather!): Leather that has been given a high-gloss finish. The final look? Shimmery and shiny!
Leather jackets: Stay warm and look cool!
Leather jackets look cool, daring and dressy in all colors of preference. The most popular color for leather clothing is black, but all colors work well, from bright bold blues to roaring reds to whimsical whites! Leather can be oiled to improve its water resistance. This currying process after tanning supplements the natural oils remaining in the leather itself, which can be washed out through repeated exposure to water. Russian leather was an important international trade good for centuries.
Frequent oiling of leather, with mink oil, neatsfoot oil, or a similar material, keeps the leather supple and improves its lifespan dramatically. You’ve probably heard of tanning leather. Tanning is a process that stabilizes the protein of the rawhide or skin because it doesn’t putrefy, making the leather suitable for a wide variety of end applications. The main difference between raw and tanned hides is that rawhides dry out to form a hard, inflexible material, while tanned material dries to a flexible form.
When making leather, crusting is a process that thins, retans and lubricates the leather. Crusting often includes a coloring operation. Chemicals added during crusting must be fixed in place. Crusting culminates with a drying and softening operation.
On those mild summer nights when you need a light wrap, wrap yourself in a lovely leather jacket and stay warm while looking cool!
Preparatory Stages Used for Tanning Leather:
- Preservation
- Soaking
- Liming
- Unhairing
- Fleshing
- Splitting
- Deliming
- Bating
- Degreasing
- Frizing
- Bleaching
- Pickling
- Depickling
Warm leather jackets make a cool style statement!
Whether waist length or long, with a fashionable leather jacket you can never go wrong!
Nancy Mangano is an American beauty/fashion/style influencer, fashion journalist, screenwriter and author of the Natalie North murder mystery book series. Visit Nancy on her global online fashion/style/beauty magazine Strutting in Style! at https://nancymariemangano.com, her Facebook page Nancy Mangano at https://www.facebook.com/nancymmangano/ Twitter @https://twitter.com/nancymangano and her author website http://www.nancymangano.com
