Custom leather jacket

May 6, 2009 - Wednesday

Yep, more customs commissions. I'm not sure where I got the idea, but it's been in my head for a while, in preparation for about a month, and by the end of May should reach completion. Oh yeah. Maybe I came up with it at the SwissMoto show. Well, no matter. The point is, I decided to get myself a custom "Beastie Driver" leather motorcycle jacket, with the nomer and the distinctive lightning design on it to match the bike. This jacket wouldn't be for breakneck drives out in France or the Black Forest; it'd be something show(off)y to wear to United dinners, shows and shindigs where a presentation of self and bike is more important than a presentation of skills. I considered commissioning the jacket from scratch, but in the end I bought a 280.- FLM piece from Polo, because it had the best cut I'd seen yet, pockets - I can't live without pockets. That's the one thing I dislike about my AlpineStars leathers; they have two tiny little breast pockets in the inside lining and nothing else, but I guess it makes for a good figure - and being made specifically for motorcycle use, I trust it more than something that may be tailored to my figure but not necessarily containing all the safety features. I've had the jecket for over a month now, and yesterday finally found a place to commission the stitchery from. I spent quite a lot of time surfing the web, looking for businesses who do custom work on single pieces of leather clothing. There weren't many who work on leather. I found one in Zürich, but upon having my call answered by a woman with strong Jugovic accent, I dropped that idea and looked farther. Yesterday I found a place in Luzern, Truckerland. It's run by a husband and wife in the trucker scene, and the lady was very friendly on the phone. I told her what I wanted, and she suggested I e-mail her the information so she could take a look at it. I did, last night, sending her photos of the jacket, scans of the - rather poor - sketches I did of the stitcheries I want, a picture of the Beastie and a reference JPEG of the Buell Pegasus. If it works out I'd like to go by with the jacket on Monday in a week, the 18th, and then it's just sit back and wait for the message that it's ready to be picked up. I really have no idea if it's possible for them to stitch in a lightning design; it's got to be much harder than airbrushing it freehand onto a piece of plastic. But I'll know more as soon as she e-mails or calls me back.