My most recent jacket purchase is the Schott 618HH aka the Horsehide Perfecto
Yesterday, I drove down to the Schott Los Angeles Flagship Store in the Fairfax neighborhood. The last time I was there was about 8 years ago when I was rushing over to pick up the coveted Schott x 3sixteen Arabica Perfecto drop in my size. The store had then recently moved location from the Americana in Glendale where I did frequently visited before that. While the store’s current location is a bit further from where I live now, the area is vibrant with a lot of cool menswear shops to check out.
I am 5’10, 41 inch shirtless chest, and 165 lbs. I used the Schott NYC website size calculator and inputted my measurements. It suggested 42 for a “slim fit” and 44 for a “regular fit”. One of the store associates James was patient and chill in helping me try on the two sizes of the 618HH. The 42 was really tight in the chest and shoulders and was pulling the chest region, while the 44 fit well in those areas, although boxier in torso region. Nowadays, if I am ever between sizes in a jacket I will go for the larger size so I went with the size 44 (it measured 23 inches pit to pit)
My initial impressions of the jacket is that the horsehide leather is really stiff, heavy, shiny, and the leather has a lot of grain to it. The only other Schott jacket I currently have is the 519 model in a size Medium, so I’ll provide some brief comparisons.
The 519 is a medium weight, buttery soft waxy pebbled cowhide with a longer body length, slim arms, open sleeve cuffs, one star on epaulet. The jacket weighs 4.62 lbs. The front length is 27 inches, and the back length is 25 inches. It has a belt snap to prevent it from flopping around.
The 618HH is a heavy weight, rigid horsehide, shorter classic body length, underarm footballs, zippered sleeve cuffs. The jacket weighs 5.46 lbs. The front length is 25.5 inches, and the back length is 25 inches. The two handwarmer pocket and chest pocket zipper directions are also opposite of the 519 – they are closed in the downward position and open upwards, while on the 519 it is the other way around.
Nowadays, I prefer the classic shorter length of the Schott jacket (~25 inches) to accompany the higher rise pants I like to wear. When I purchased the Schott 519, I was mostly wearing slim pants with longer shirts and the extended body length (~27 inches) on the 519 jacket paired well with that. Both styles definitely work, it’s just preference on how you would like to style them.