How to RESTORE & STYLE a Vintage Leather Jacket [VIDEO]

 Video Transcription

So guys, this is John. Hope you're doing all right. Now one of the items that I'm always searching for when I go thrifting are vintage leather jackets, and I've never been able to find one. They're so hard to find. Usually they're ruined, terrible condition, or they're just not my size. Usually they're just super big. But about a month ago, I did a thrifting vlog where I got super lucky and I was able to find this leather jacket right here. As you can tell, it's faded. It's worn. Oh, it just fits so perfectly. Oh, I don't know if you can tell. I'm definitely going to be doing some B-roll. I don't know if you can tell right now, but it just fits perfectly baggy. I think this is exactly my size. It's a little oversized, but this is exactly what I've been trying to find for over a year now.

To be able to cop it for $6 and hopefully restore it, ah, how expensive could it be? Kind of expensive, almost $100. It's not something that I want to waste on a jacket that I don't know if I'm going to keep. And then I got lucky because I checked on my email, and actually that same day that I purchased this jacket, I got an email from-

What's up guys? The next part of the video is brought to you by Simple [inaudible 00:00:56].

Simple Shine. Now, Simple Shine is a small company that specializes in garment cleaning. They have different kits whether it be leather goods, sneakers, suede, nubuck, different materials like that. And man, I got lucky. As soon as I saw on their website that they had a leather cleaning kit, oh, I let them know I want to restore this vintage leather jacket I found, they sent me that. They also sent me a sneaker cleaning kit.

Today we're going to take a look at this kit, see if we can save this vintage leather jacket, and then I'm going to style this jacket at the end. Let's start the process of cleaning and restoring this leather jacket. All right guys, let's get started with the restoration process. Now the kit does come with a little booklet here with the instructions on how to correctly clean, cleanse and restore your leather goods. Thankfully, because ... or else I'd have no idea.

Let's get started. Step one is to grab the bottle that's titled "cleaner", as well as one of the microfiber cloths in the kit, and it does say to add about a quarter-sized amount to the cloth.

All right guys. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. It's been a few hours. I've cleaned the jacket, so before I give out my final verdict on if I'd recommend the Simple Shine leather cleaning kit, I want to show you the final results of the jacket. Again, it's been a few hours, it's dried, and here it is. Oh man. Oh, just look at that. You can definitely ... I'm going to post some before and after photos, where you can see the change in color. It was super dusty and dirty, and it was very moldy green. Now that I think about it, what if that was mold?

I am very happy with the results. Oh, oh. It's nice to have a little bit of the color of the leather, just restored. The quality of the leather is maintained. It didn't affect it at all. If anything, it made the leather even softer than it was.

I'm just glad to have been able to restore this a bit, so now it's in wearable condition. I'm excited to style it, but first I need to give you the verdict on that product right there. Simple Shine. Again, my answer is yes, all right? I definitely recommend Simple Shine. I'm so glad that they hit me up in my email. They're a small family-owned business, so they're not paying me for this review. They just wanted to send me some product for me to give my honest opinion. All their links and everything is going to be in the link down below. Thank you guys again for sending me this product, Simple Shine.

But now we need to move on to the styling portion of this jacket, all right? Now that we see that the final product is wearable, so for this first outfit, I really wanted to keep just the vintage aesthetic of this jacket in my outfit. I wanted to pick pieces that just complemented very well, so we're going full 70-ish vibes with it because again, I don't know how old this jacket is, but it looks pretty freaking old.

So for the first bit, this is what we have. And this is the first outfit right here. Hopefully the camera caught that, but these are the pants. First I'm going to show you the pants, and then I'll get on to the shirt. These pants I thrifted about a year ago, and I love them. They're this beautiful maroonish-red color, and oh, they just fit so well. They have this very 70-esque look to them, especially the way they finish at the bottom. It sort of has this very wide ... And then it sort of tapers in through the thighs, and then it just widens again at the bottom.

Any outfit I show you, it's going to be with these babies right here. These are my Wyatts, fellas. My Wyatts, I love them. Obviously the cliche classic [inaudible 00:04:16] leather boot, but I love these things, man. Like everybody else that owns them. They're beautiful. I love them. They go with everything, and also they're my only leather boot. I don't have a big old collection. I just have these. They were expensive, so I'll wear them.

I paired these pants with this Urban Outfitters ... Just like, oh, I don't even know how to explain this. It's just this button-up. It's very smooth, silky. But it's Urban Outfitters, so it's polyester or whatever. Just old vintage-esque vibes. This is something I'd imagine at the disco, you know what I'm talking about? Like ooh yeah, like if I had a big 'fro, it'd be dope. And with the jacket, it all just flows so well. Old, cool, great. I don't know how to describe it, but it's a really dope outfit. Something that I'd definitely wear out just to dinner with my girl having a little classy night, you know what I mean? Maybe have like a bag ...

Look, if we're being ... In all honesty, this is my closest Sanjeev-esque outfit. He is different, but if I wanted to try, this would maybe be something that I could imitate his style or ... No, I couldn't even imitate it. I love his videos. I love his style, but it does not look good on me. I just ... I don't get it. Maybe it's because it's kind of ugly, but all his clothes look good. I don't get it. I'm ugly?

All right, guys. All right. All right. Enough of my jealousy of Sanjeev. If you want to support this channel ... Chanel. If you want to support the Chanel, hit that Like button, hit that Subscribe button, turn on notifications, but also leave a comment down below on video ideas that you guys want to see.

We need to move to outfit number deuce, dos. Is that what he says? Yeah. Numero dos. Number two. All right, so this one I kept a little casual, and this is what I came up with. For the bottom, I went with this just washed-out gray denim. And then for the top, I just kept it simple with a turtleneck. This is something that would be more of a casual night out, like if it's a little cold. And I really just wanted to be warm: my turtleneck with a jacket.

So it's just a cool nighttime casual fit, because this is more of a leather bomber jacket, man. This is heavy. All right, I'm tired, so I'm going to just wear it. Because this jacket has this bomber jacket feel, it's oversized but at the same time cozy, it has a very casual-esque vibe to it, so that's why I think it paired well with the turtle neck underneath. It just kept it simple with a washed-out gray-ish charcoal denim. Again, this is something that I could also just wear with some black pants, black jeans. So because the jacket is this like washed out color, the black turtle neck with the washed-out gray denim just works well.

And again, [inaudible 00:06:50] with my boots, everything flows well and man, I'm excited to just pull out some more outfits. It's still the springtime here in Atlanta. It's getting a little bit warm, but the nighttime is a little bit more cool. There's still some breezes here and there, so I'm going to try and get some wear out of this over the next month, before it just gets too hot and humid to wear anything besides T-shirts.

But yeah, cool to have in my collection and again, I'm planning on moving to New York in a year, so this is going to be [inaudible 00:07:15] just to have, because honestly, when I'm moving to New York, I'm going to be able to find vintage leather. [inaudible 00:07:22] thrift stores over there, just on a different level than where I live.

But those were the 'fits, guys. Man, I'm so thankful you guys stuck through. I was so excited to finally be able to ... What's the word? I've been saying it all the video. What's the word? Condition, recover ...

I'm so excited I was finally able to restore that leather jacket back into a better shape to where I can actually wear it and style it. Thank you guys again to Simple Shine. Thank you for sending me that leather cleaning kit. I'm excited to use your sneaker cleaning kit as well, and guys, go check them out. If you're looking for anything to restore your leather jackets, highly recommended, but thank you. My name has been John. I'll see you guys in the next few days.

I have so much fun creating these videos, but I've just realized that I'm such a calm person, but when I turn on the camera, I get super animated. See you guys in the next few days.

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