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In 1979 I saved up for a leather jacket and my mother made me take it back. This is a letter about the one I finally kept
Six things this leather-look moto jacket gets right that forty-seven years of sensible quilted coats never did, from a woman who had been told, at seventeen, that “nice girls don’t.”
Catharine Laurent · Dallas · 5 min read
I am 64, and in the fall of 1979, when I was seventeen, I saved eleven weeks of Saturday wages from Woolworth’s and bought a brown leather jacket from a store downtown. I wore it home. I got as far as the kitchen. My mother looked at it, looked at me, and said, “Nice girls don’t,” and it went back to the store on the Monday. I have thought about that jacket, on and off, for forty-seven years. So this is not a review. It is a woman who finally bought it again, saying why.
The jacket I am writing about is the Romina, a leather-look moto jacket with a stand collar, from the Autumnal Character collection at Novira Dallas, a small American shop that dresses women our age. Mine is the reddish brown, which is the exact color of a chestnut, and very nearly the color of the one I took back. My granddaughter found it on my phone and said, “Grandma, just buy it.” When Novira later asked if they could share my letter, I said yes, on the condition I could be completely honest in it.
Here is what forty-seven years of sensible coats taught me. Somewhere along the way, a woman my age is handed a uniform. A quilted jacket in navy or olive, a fleece for the dog walk, a raincoat for best. It is warm, it is practical, and it says, very clearly, “I have stopped trying.” I wore that uniform for decades, and I never once looked in the hall mirror and felt anything at all.
At seventeen I was told nice girls don’t. At sixty-four I have decided that nice girls absolutely do, if the collar is right.
This is the first jacket I have bought because I wanted it rather than because it was sensible, and having worn it for a month, to the stores, around White Rock Lake, out to dinner and, I am delighted to say, to my mother's old church, I can tell you it comes down to six things.
The stand collar makes it refined, not rock and roll
This is why it works at my age. Instead of the big flapping lapels and buckles you picture on a biker jacket, the Romina has a soft stand collar. It frames the neck without feeling stiff, and it turns the whole thing from “trying to be twenty” into something tidy and grown-up. It looks like a jacket an elegant woman would wear in Paris, not one that belongs on the back of a motorcycle.
Jean took one look and said, “That’s not a biker jacket, that’s a proper jacket.” Exactly right.
The seams give you a shape again
It is tailored, with shaped seams down the front that give a slim line. After years in quilted coats that turned me into a sleeping bag with a head, it was a small shock to see that I still had a waist. I am not slim. The jacket simply follows the lines I have, rather than burying them.
Caught myself in a store window downtown and stopped to look properly. I cannot remember the last time I did that.
It is light, so you actually wear it
I want to be honest here: it is leather-look, not real leather, and that suits me down to the ground. My memory of that 1979 jacket is that it weighed a ton and creaked. The Romina is light and comfortable, so I wear it from the morning dog walk right through to the evening without ever feeling I have a suit of armor on. It is the jacket that gets taken off the hook, and that is the whole point of a jacket.
Dog walk, stores, lunch, home. Never took it off. The quilted coat stayed on its hook all week.
One clean zipper, and nothing else
A single clean zipper up the front. No belts, no snaps, no studs, nothing to catch on a scarf or snag on a cardigan sleeve. It zips right up on a windy morning by the water and sits open just as nicely over a sweater in town. It looks deliberate either way, which is more than I can say for anything with toggles.
Wind off the water, zipper all the way up, collar standing. Felt like a French film star. Looked, Geoff says, “smart.” I will take it.
It goes from errands to dinner
Over jeans for the stores, over pants for lunch, and, the one that surprised me most, over a simple dress for dinner. Geoff took me out for our anniversary and I wore it over my navy dress, and I felt more like myself than I had in years. A sensible coat makes a dress look like it is going to a funeral. This makes it look like it is going somewhere it will enjoy.
Waitress asked where the jacket was from. Told her the whole 1979 story. She was very patient.
Five colors, six styles, sizes up to 4XL
The Romina comes in beige, brown, black, blue and the reddish brown, in sizes from XS all the way to 4XL. And it is one of six jackets in the collection: there is a cropped one, a suede-look one with a zip across the front, a slim one, one with chest pockets, and one with a hood, which Jean has her eye on. A word on sizing, since it is a tailored jacket: if you are between sizes, Novira advise going up one, and I would follow that.
Jean has ordered the hooded one. We are going to look like a pair of aging rock stars at book club. I could not be more pleased.
This jacket, against the sensible quilted one
Most of us never choose our fall jacket. We are handed the uniform at about fifty and wear it until somebody tells us otherwise. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
Puffy, so you lose your shape
The same one as every woman in the line
Navy or olive, and nothing else
Looks wrong over a dress
Chosen because it was sensible
Shaped seams for a slim, tailored line
A soft stand collar that looks refined
Reddish brown, brown, beige, black or blue
Over jeans, pants or a dress
Chosen because I wanted it, at last
About the price
The Romina is $69.95 at the moment, and so is every jacket in the collection. The website says that is down from $233.00. I will not pretend I know what a jacket like this ought to cost, but I can tell you that in 1979 the real thing cost me eleven Saturdays at Woolworth’s, and this cost me rather less than a single trip to the salon.
I will pass on what Novira told me, which is that they are a small shop selling directly, and the sale is on for the fall and winter stock. Their words, not mine. They also take a bit more off if you buy more than one, up to 20%, which is how Jean and I came to order together.
Delivery was free and tracked, it was packed within a couple of days and reached me inside two weeks, and there is a thirty-day money-back guarantee if it is not right. That is what got me to press the button. This time, nobody made me take it back.
6 styles
guarantee
US delivery
If somebody once told you a jacket like this was not for you, whether it was your mother, your age or just the woman in the fitting-room mirror, this is the one I would hand you myself, while your color and size are still there. Nice girls do. It only took me forty-seven years to find out.
Catharine
Romina · Stand-Collar Moto Jacket
Every jacket $69.95 · bundle and save up to 20%
- Leather-look finish, light and comfortable
- Soft stand collar that frames without stiffness
- Shaped front seams for a slim, tailored line
- One clean front zipper, nothing to snag
- Over jeans, pants or a simple dress
- 5 colors · sizes XS to 4XL · 6 styles in the collection
- FREE tracked US delivery & 30-day money-back guarantee
Between sizes? Novira advise going one size up.
About the writer. Catharine Laurent is 64 and lives in Dallas with her husband Geoff and a spaniel called Biscuit. She taught elementary school for thirty-one years and still cannot walk past a library.
This page is an advertisement for Novira Dallas. Individual experiences may vary. Novira Dallas · FREE tracked US delivery · 30-day money-back guarantee.