I want to buy a leather jacket at a brick and mortar store

In My Humble Opinion
1

Recently, my 40-year old leather jacket fell apart from old age.

I bought it at a Wilson’s Leather store in a local mall. Wilson’s are still in business, but as far as I can determine, only online.

I’ve had bad luck buying clothes online. I’m short, with broad shoulders. If a jacket fits me in the shoulders, it’s usually too long. Sizing charts are often inaccurate. So I’d like to be able to try it on before buying.

I often have my clothes altered at a local tailor shop, but that’s more difficult with leather. And with jackets (as opposed to shirts and pants).

Are there stores anywhere that might serve my needs? I live in the DC-Baltimore area, but could travel a few hours).

TIA.

2

There’s a national chain called Boot Barn that has some leather jackets for men, you can look at them online first to see if you like any of them. They appear to have a large number of stores in your area.

Also Yelp returned a list of several leather goods stores in your area, and at least some of them have men’s jackets. One of these is a Wilson’s in Bethesda (one is never sure if Yelp information is up to day, though).

If custom-made (excuse me, “bespoke”) jackets are of interest, there’s a shop called Brimble and Clark.

There’s a place called Madewell in DC, mainly they sell jeans, but also leather jackets.

I didn’t exhaust all the possibilities from an online search, but this should get you started.

3

Thank you for this.

My googling for brick-and-mortar merchants always seemed to keep getting steered to online merchants.

I will check those places out.

4

I’ve worn leather jackets as my casual winter coat for close to 40 years. I ran into the same problem when my previous coat had finally worn out – there weren’t any brick-and-mortar stores where I could find a new one.

I wound up buying one from U.S. Wings, an online store, which specializes in replica bomber/fighter jackets. It’s a nice jacket, but it cost an arm and a leg. (Also, the dye that they used smelled funny for several months after I received it – the scent finally went away, but it was strange.)

I wish you luck!

5

Protip: Instead of a naked google, try doing a search in a mapping app or on a map website. You’re implicitly searching for actual locations that way.

6

I might check out the second-hand stores, if you have any nearby.

7

If ‘often’ is often enough that you’d be comfortable doing it, you might ask the tailor for a recommendation for a place to go. They might might be able to point you in the right direction.

8

I impulse-bought a leather jacket for an Overland store in Santa Fe, mid-summer (of all the inappropriate times and places to need a leather jacket). I’m very happy with it.

From their website, they have about 20 stores scattered over the US.

9

Since your coat apparently fit you well for forty years why not contact Wilson’s with the size and style of your coat and ask for recommendations for a replacement?

10

I bought my most recently acquired leather jacket in 1989, at an Army-Navy surplus store.

There are several such in the DC area that might be worth checking on; they generally won’t have all sizes and styles but the price will be good:

11

I usually start searching with “(item) for sale near me;” in this case (item) was “mens leather jackets.” Also I had to change it to “near Washington DC” rather than “near me.” I did get a fair number of online hits, but I skipped past those and found the ones I mentioned, among others.

The idea of using a mapping app for highlighting actual stores is also good.