I was hoping Santa Baby would bring me a new leather jacket this Xmas, but …no. The old one I’m wearing is OK except the cuffs are all worn and frayed and chewed up. It’s soft black leather, it may be lamb.
I was thinking: a) live with it. b) try to disguise the worn edge with, say, an indelible marker. c) go to Joanne Fabrics, look at their trim and stuff for making belts and purses, buy some vinyl and somehow glue this trim to the edge of the cuffs (but what kind of glue?). or d) go to a shoe repair place, or tailor, and see what they can do? This would be kind of expensive, I think…So what should I do, any suggestions?
An upholstery repair place that works in leather might be able to help too. depending on the style of the piece, you might be able to get away with just having a new strip of thin soft leather just folded around the existing cuff and stitched into place. Should not be a horribly difficult process for anyone with a leather sewing machine. Assuming they have the proper bits of leather would probably take less than an hour.
Is the leather intact, but just old looking, or are there tears and bits missing?
The former can be fixed up pretty well with some leather dye and conditioner.
Missing leather is tougher. A good shop can replace the cuffs, but that will not be cheap. Depending on the amount of work needed, I could easily see that hitting $50 or more. Twenty years ago, we were charging $35 to replace knit cuffs of the sort on bomber or varsity jackets.
If it’s just the very edge, it would be possible to wrap some leather around the end, but it will probably only end up looking like a patch job.
FWIW, lamb skin is just crazy fragile. I’ve patched up jackets where a light switch reached out and made a two inch tear in an elbow.
Maybe another dead leather clothing item (Perhaps the leather repair place has this ? ) that has very similar leather can be the donor for the transplant to it doesn’t look too out of style. Maybe the cuff can be made to look similar to the collar in an effort to stop it looking like a patch
Or, patches can be attached elsewhere to make it a “patch” style.
Leaving well enough alone is usually a viable option.
NOOOOOO!
For once thing, black indelible markers have a habit of fading out to purple over time.
While that’s possible, the odds of it looking decent are slim. However, if you are careful to apply it evenly it might work. You want a leather-appropriate contact cement - DO NOT use super glue, gorilla glue, or elmer’s for this. A craft rubber cement is probably the easiest to obtain. Apply rubber cement to both surfaces and allow to dry. “Refresh” with a quick swipe of fresh cement, then bring the surfaces into contact with each other.
The shoe repair store where I work can do this, and as noted, there are leather alteration shops. The average tailor won’t be able to help you because their machines deal with cloth, not leather.
It could be… depends on what, exactly, needs to be done.
If the edges are just faded out/greyed then a leather conditioner or refinisher is your best option. If there is severe damage or missing leather that’s different and more difficult.
It would take less than an hour EXCEPT that there are few places doing this anymore so the ones I’m aware of have 2-3 week (or more!) waits simply due to the amount of work in the shop. My current place of an employment has someone doing these sorts of repairs full time and right now our turn around time is 3 weeks and 2 days. most tasks are only 5-15 minutes but there are so damn many of them because we’re about the only place around doing it.
Yes, those are all options. It’s hard to say any more without knowing what the article in question actually looks like and the actual damage/problem it has.
Thank you for the responses. Thank you in particular, Broomstick.
I will probably leave things as they are, taking the path of least resistance. The jacket (actually a coat) is about 10-15 years old, a trenchcoat style. I am sick unto death of it and hope to get something new and better next year, if not this year. The only thing really wrong is the edges of the cuffs, very worn, and actually frayed at a couple of points.