Aero Leather The Original 59’er Highwayman

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As the Highwayman name is a registered trademark owned by Aero, over the years we always meant to make a proper replica of the original Rivetts jacket, indeed it’s always amazed us that nobody else has done one…….. OK there have been one or two half hearted attempts by other manufacturers but most have been far closer to our “Americanised” Highwayman rather than the 1950s British originals.

Although we missed the obvious date for an Aero recreation in 2013, the 30th Anniversary of the birth of the Aero Highwayman, we are now proud to introduce a proper replica using only British manufacturing techniques. There were many subtle variations to the Rivetts version, rather that recreate any one particular example we put all the best features of the 50’s originals together to produce the quintessential British Bike Jacket

For our new jacket we use only British tailoring techniques, we have chosen a soft but thick British Steerhide instead of the Lambskin used on most of the originals, the sheep leather had a rather limited lifespan, but that’s about the only concession we’ve made and, as our leather closely resembles the sadly missed Connolly hide we used in the 1980s, we are sure everyone will find that a positive rather than a negative. Our version uses ball and chain zippers in the two side pockets and like most versions of the original we’ve used the same zippers in the cuffs. For a neater look these are fitted in the seam rather than in the more common position in middle of the top sleeve, we’ve used pronged side buckles in an original 50’s design, a proper recreation of the earliest of the original front zippers used by Rivetts which is top stitched in the old British style with the zipper teeth exposed and the classic double stitched collar with a sharp point.

The lining choice was easy, Royal Stewart tartan like the vast majority of the originals, available in a choice of 100% Cotton or Lochcarron Pure Wool as an optional extra and set off with a recreation of the original label for authenticity.

The fit of the jacket, although similar to the Aero Highwayman, is based on the Rivetts jacket, it’s about 1″ shorter than our famous version and is slimmer at the waist.

Finally, to pay homage those who grew up wearing a Rivetts Highwayman we’ve decide to call our recreation “The 59’er Highwayman”, 59 in respect of the “59 Club” members for whom a Highwayman was virtually de rigueur and 59 because, I suppose, 1959 was probably the heyday of this style.

THIS JACKET IS NOT AVAILABLE IN CHROMEXCEL HORSEHIDE