In one of my recent blog posts, I talked about my search for the perfect black leather jacket. You can read it here if you’re interested, but in that post I reviewed the top points I’m looking for as well as some of my top contenders. In short, I’m looking for something that hits the following points outlined below.
WHAT I’M LOOKING FOR
BLACK LEATHER: I talked about this in more detail in my earlier post but I want a black leather jacket because it’s a piece I’ve always coveted and at the moment, I have a brown one in a traditional biker style (but slightly more refined), a black leather blazer and a super simple almost 90’s style leather jacket that I bought second hand to try out, and I’ve decided that it doesn’t really serve my style so it’s currently on hold.
SLIGHTLY CROPPED + FITTED: I’m 5’3” tall and small framed with a short torso. Of my 5’3” height over 37 inches belong to my legs so cropped tops tend to be perfect and a cropped length for a leather jacket is ideal. I also need something that has shorter sleeves to accommodate my shorter arms.
NOT TOO MUCH HARDWARE: I’m also looking for minimal but not too minimal hardware that hits the happy medium between a traditional biker jacket and a minimal style. I’m undecided on whether I want a waist belt or not, but I do know that it can’t be too bulky.
MINIMAL SHOULDER DETAILS: The minimal but not too minimal hardware continues onto the shoulders with minimal shoulder details that aren’t too structured. I don’t want any obvious shoulder pads and definitely don’t want major zippers or buckles on the shoulders. Simple button tabs are perfect.
AND THEN THERE WERE THREE
Using the above parameters, I narrowed it down to a few top contenders but after doing a ton more research, watching some review videos and requesting the full sizing information for each of the leather jackets I had on my list, I narrowed it down even further to 3 which are essentially 2 - more of that in a bit.
The jackets in question are:
Each of these met my parameters but all look so similar that I was having a hard time narrowing it down to just 1, so I created a quick cheat sheet of sorts that I’ve embedded below.
Whenever I’m working on a big purchase and trying to figure out the perfect piece, I like to create a chart like the one below where I can see everything at once. It helps me clearly differentiate between each option and even spot major style differences that don’t really stand out on their own. I create these in photoshop but you can also use Canva.
As you can see from the points above, the main differences between these comes down to the exact crop length and the waist band. Also, it wasn’t until I put this chart together and tracked down the “debbie” jacket on every site I could find it that I realized it’s just the older version of the “joan!” Something I never would have realized if I hadn’t put them all side by side like this, especially because they look so different in the two images I’ve included here.
Now that I have this chart though, all that’s left to do is come back with fresh eyes in a day or two, do even more outfit planning and research and then make a final choice! I’m so excited and I find the whole process so gratifying.
In the meantime, I’ve embedded some of my favorite leather jacket images that I’ve saved in order to get to this point and you can see the rest over on my Pinterest here.
