HOW TO BUY LEATHERS
Made-to-measure leathers are great. And Britain is great at making them…
Not any old leathers, but made-tomeasure. Bespoke. Just for you…
KIT’S ONLY AS GOOD AS THE FIT…
Riders who wear off-the-peg often find that, although their kit fits OK, it’s not spot-on. Perhaps the knee armour sits too low, or maybe the shoulders are a little bit too loose. In these situations you have to ask yourself what would happen in the event of a crash – improperly positioned armour is just as bad as not having armour at all. With British made-to-measure leathers the person who’s taking your measurements is the person creating your suit. There’s no third party involved, nothing that’s lost in translation between the measurer and a foreign factory. This way you can discuss your exact requirements so you can strike the balance between safety, fit and comfort.
BRITISH KIT’S NOT IN THE DARK AGES
Although it’s a bespoke, handmade service, this doesn’t mean that British leather manufacturers have been left behind in the 1970s. Hideout’s top-spec track suit is made from kangaroo leather and features an integrated cordoperated Helite airbag system. Rivals BKS Made to Measure of Exmouth have also created a fully custom airbag suit, powered by Alpinestars’ Tech Air vest.
LEATHER
The leather is mainly cow hide from Brazil. We use their premium deer/cow which is an average thickness of 1.4mm. It’s important the skins contain the most amount of corium, which is a protein that binds the fibre of the leather together ensuring it is super strong. Cheaper leathers contain less corium which makes the skin more fibrous and more prone to tearing. The tear strength is measured on each hide we use using a special gauge. Unfortunately less scrupulous manufacturers use an inferior quality hide which looks on the surface very similar but its tear strength is weaker and the consumer won’t find this out until they are sliding down the road.
IT’S ALL HANDMADE
Nothing is stamped out. We have generic patterns but as most people are an amalgamation of sizes we end up making a new pattern based on the specific measurements I’ve taken. And every panel is cut by hand which is why it’s so time consuming. All in all it takes 27 hours to make a suit, and that doesn’t take into account the fittings and measuring work.
THINK OF IT AS AN HEIRLOOM…
We’ve seen the children of previous customers bring in a jacket or suit that their dad had made by us 30 years ago. And the jacket itself still looks as good – if not better – than it did all that time ago because now it’s been used and it’s got a life of its own. It’s lovely to see, but it’s perhaps not very good for business if our kit’s lasting that long! That’s testament to leather really – if you pay for good quality and you look after it then it doesn’t wear out. We’ve blown the dust off a lot of our old designs from the 1970s because retro styling has become so popular, but we still see plenty of our original jackets coming back to us for zip replacements or alterations.
WE’VE ALWAYS USED SOFT ARMOUR…
And the rest of the industry have caught up with us in that respect. We use armour from British brand D30 which comes in three different levels of protection, and it’s good that we can offer that choice to customers. Most off the peg suits only come with Level-1 armour as standard, which is only tested to the equivalent of a 30mph impact. The speed at impact for the average road crash is 45mph which is why Level-2 armour is a better option for most riders. Especially those who ride on track.
A STITCH IN TIME
Seams are the weakest part of the suit so it’s our job to make sure it’s as strong as we can make it. The leather panels are triple stitched with a Nylon-bonded thread and we use different thicknesses depending on the area that we’re working on. After we’ve stitched it together we then go over all the seams with a double-stitching machine, which looks like a regular sewing machine but has two needles. The seams are also buried between two folds of leather which means that they’re never exposed and at risk of being damaged. There was a big thing about using Kevlar thread for a while, but it was too strong and ended up cutting through the leather itself.