Mens Patchwork Leather Bomber Jacket in Multicolour

A patchwork leather jacket is made from separate panels of leather in different colours, cut and stitched into a single garment rather than cut from one hide. This one is a bomber, with a grid of red, yellow, blue, cream, olive, brown and pink panels, a leather point collar, a centre zip and red ribbed cuffs and hem, in sizes XXS to 3XL.

Where patchwork leather comes from

Patchwork began as thrift rather than design. Tanneries and workshops finish a hide and are left with offcuts too small for a panel and too good to throw away, and somebody worked out that enough offcuts stitched together make a garment. It became a look in the 1970s, when the offcut jacket turned into a deliberate choice and the panels started being cut to size rather than salvaged. That is where this jacket sits, and the grid layout with a bomber body is the version that has aged best. The looser fish scale and random shape versions of the same decade look firmly of their time. A clean grid does not.

This is a bomber, not a biker jacket

Worth being precise, because this style gets described wrongly almost everywhere. The zip runs up the centre. A biker jacket carries an asymmetrical zip set off to one side, which exists to give a storm flap across the chest. The collar here is a point collar that lies flat, not a lapel that folds back. The hem and cuffs are ribbed knit, which is a bomber feature, and the body is cut straight and short rather than shaped to the waist. The distinction matters for how you wear it. A biker jacket has structure and sits away from the body. This sits closer, gathers at the waist, and works over a shirt or a fine knit in a way a biker jacket does not.

How to tell a well made patchwork jacket from a bad one

Look at the seams, and specifically at whether the grid lines up. On a good one, the horizontal seams meet across the zip opening. Close the jacket and the rows should run continuously from one side to the other. On a cheap one they step up or down at the zip by half an inch or more, because the panels were assembled without matching the front edges. Once you have seen it you cannot unsee it. The second thing is panel thickness. Every panel here is a different colour, which usually means a different dye lot and sometimes a different hide. If the panels vary in weight, the jacket ruckles where a heavy panel meets a light one. Run your hand across the back. It should feel consistent. The third is seam allowance. Patchwork has many times the seam length of a plain jacket, and every seam is a place that can eventually need restitching. More seams is not a fault, it is inherent to the technique, but it means the stitching quality matters more here than on a single panel jacket.

The pale panels are the honest problem

Nobody selling one of these mentions this, so here it is. This jacket has cream, pink and off white panels sitting next to brown, navy and red ones. The pale panels will mark, and marks show on pale leather far more than on dark. The difficulty is that you cannot clean one panel in isolation. Working on a cream square with any leather cleaner risks lifting dye from the red square beside it, and dye transfer between panels is very hard to reverse. The practical approach is to deal with marks immediately with a barely damp cloth and nothing else, and to take anything serious to a leather specialist rather than attempting it at home. Store it away from direct sunlight too. Dyed colours in yellow, red and orange are less lightfast than browns and blacks, so a jacket left hanging in a sunny window fades unevenly across the grid.

Fit

Bomber cut, so take your usual size. The ribbed hem gathers at the waist and the body is cut straight above it, which gives room through the chest without the jacket looking loose. Leather has no stretch and this jacket has a great deal of seam running through it, so it gives less than a plain leather bomber does. If you are between sizes, take the larger one here rather than the smaller.

What it goes with

Everything else you wear should be plain and quiet. The jacket carries eight colours and it is the entire outfit on its own. Black or indigo denim, a plain tee or a fine knit in one colour, and simple footwear. Do not try to pick out one of the panel colours in your shoes or your shirt, because matching a single square makes the jacket look like it was chosen to coordinate rather than to stand alone.

Care

Condition it twice a year with a conditioner suitable for dyed leather, tested on an inside seam first. Keep it dry. Wipe rain off with a dry cloth and let the jacket dry at room temperature, never near a heater. Store it on a broad padded hanger with air around it, out of direct light, never sealed in plastic

Specification table

Specification	Detail
Outer material	Genuine leather
Lining	Quilted polyester, full body and sleeves
Closure	Front zip
Collar	Shirt collar
Cuffs	Rib-knit
External pockets	Two pockets at the waist
Internal pockets	Two inside
Back detail	Patches
Colour	Multi
Fit	Regular, takes a mid weight layer
Sizes	XXS to 3XL, plus made to measure
Care	Condition twice yearly. No machine wash, no heat drying

Garment measurements by size. Measured flat, in inches. These cells stay empty until you send production figures. Publishing a measurement that is wrong causes returns, so I have not guessed.

Size	Chest across	Shoulder	Sleeve	Back length
XXS	40	18	25	25
XS	42	18	25	25
S	44	19	25	26
M	46	20	26	27
L	48	20	27	27
XL	50	20.5	27	27.5
2XL	52	21.5	27	28
3XL	54	23	28	29