Four Sheepskins to a Jacket
Four Sheepskins to a Jacket
A size medium takes four long curl sheepskins and one full day of one craftsman's hands.
Some things cannot be made faster. This is one of them, and the arithmetic behind it is the most interesting part.
What Shearling Actually Is
Shearling is sheepskin tanned with the wool still attached to the hide. That is the whole definition and it is the whole advantage.
A lining is a separate piece sewn in. Shearling is not a lining. The wool grows out of the leather, so there is no seam between the insulation and the shell, no gap for cold to find, and nothing to shift or compress into a corner over the years.
The wool does the same thing wool always does. The crimp in each fiber holds the fibers apart and traps still air, and the still air is the warmth. The leather side stops wind completely.
Why Aviators Used It
In the early 1930s aircraft started flying higher than clothing could handle. Crews were sitting in unpressurized cabins in temperatures far below anything on the ground, for hours.
The answer was standardized in 1934 as the Type B-3, a sheepskin flying coat with the leather out and the wool in. It is one of the most copied garments ever made, and the reason is that nothing has beaten it. Ninety years of synthetic development and the original answer is still the answer.
Long Curl
Not all sheepskin is the same. Long curl is exactly what it sounds like. The wool is long and it curls, and it moves and catches light in a way that short dense shearling does not.
Every skin is its own thing. The curls differ, the hair length differs, the direction the hair lies differs. You cannot order them to match and you would not want to.
The Arithmetic
A size medium takes four of these sheepskins to line the body and the collar.
Each jacket is sewn from start to finish, one at a time, by one craftsman, and it takes a full day. Not a day of a line moving. A day of one person on one jacket.
The production run takes around one hundred and twenty days from start to finish.
Four skins, one day, one pair of hands. Every jacket is one of a kind, and that is arithmetic rather than marketing.
The Shell
The outside is Horween horsehide. Josh worked with Horween on this specific tan, and it wears and colors in a way that is worth watching happen.
Horsehide is denser and tighter grained than steer hide. It takes abrasion better and it breaks in slower, and it develops a hard shine at the elbows and the shoulders as the years go on. It is the reason an old leather jacket looks like something.
Horween has been tanning in Chicago for well over a century. The leather is tanned there and the jacket is made in Seattle. The long curl sheepskin comes from Canada.
The Details
The sleeves are lined with our custom Black Bear Brand diamond quilting, made in Japan, so the arms slide rather than drag.
Black Bear Brand YKK snaps.
There is a reversible vest in the same materials, with a Black Bear Brand vintage Talon reversible zipper.
Why It Is a Preorder
Because of everything above. There is no warehouse of these and there never will be. They are made to order in our stock sizing, a limited number at a time, and the next preorder is announced when it opens.
That is the honest consequence of four skins and a full day. It is worth the wait.
A Way Of Life.
Shop the Story
the Northern Dream jacket in TEA DYED Horween horsehide
the Northern Dream jacket in Horween veg tanned horsehide
the Northern Dream reversible VEST
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Made in Seattle, Made in Japan