Every single person at my office who owns a black biker jacket wears it like a Halloween costume they’re committed to for one day a year. On over a nice blouse, off the second a meeting starts, back on for the walk to the elevator. Nobody actually lives in theirs. That’s the complaint and I’m not taking it back.
Mine’s been on my body since 7:40am four days this week, through the bus, past my desk, into a client call I didn’t dress up for, and out to drinks that got announced at 4:58pm on a Thursday like a threat. That’s the whole test for me.
Not does it look good in the mirror at home. Does it survive a day that changes plans on you without asking.
The zip on mine is the actual hero, and I say that as someone who owns a button front biker that I’ve worn maybe six times because buttons in a hurry in an elevator is a small violent argument with yourself every single time. Zip, done, hands free, coffee still upright. I paid nineteen dollars for the zip one at my Tuesday thrift place, which I already know is unfair to compare against anything, so I’m not going to pretend that’s the price everyone’s getting.
Here’s the part nobody warns you about and it should be criminal. It does not close over a sweater. Not a real one. Fine over a blouse, fine over a thin layer, and then October happens and you’re standing there like the jacket personally rejected you. I found this out on a Monday, in front of the building, trying to zip it over a chunky sweater like I was trying to fit a couch through a doorway. I gave up and just carried the thing like a purse for the day, which, for the record, negates every reason I bought it.
And can we talk about the lint. Black attracts every fiber in a ten foot radius like it’s got a grudge.
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My cat, who I love, treats this jacket like a welcome mat. I’ve started keeping a lint roller in my desk drawer specifically for this jacket, which is its own quiet admission that the relationship has costs.
Cost per wear, since I can’t not do this: nineteen dollars, worn twenty three times since March by my actual count, so under a dollar, which is obscene in the best way and puts it comfortably in my good column for the year.
I’ll say the honest part too. This isn’t a jacket for someone who wants to look “finished” at work. It reads a little tough, a little like you might leave early. If your office runs buttoned up and quiet, this could read as a dare rather than an outfit, and that’s not nothing.
But it’s on my body more than half my closet, and that’s the only review that’s ever mattered to me.
