The story about the leather jacket

...and a sensitive tortoise in need of a cool armor

I have had this leather jacket since 2008 or 2009, I´m not sure.

I am sure of where I bought it: At a thrift store where I have been a regular costumer since I came to this town as a 20 year old student (I am now 38).

I remember it was cheap, well under 500 NOK at the time.

And most of all, I remember the feeling of “finally! THE leather jacket”.

Like meeting someone you really vibe with, someone who´s a bit cooler than you, making you almost fall just a little bit in love with them and also wanting to be them. (More on that particular feeling very soon.)

I put the jacket on and I saw myself as Lydia Lunch, Debbie Harry, James Dean, Sandy in the final scene of Grease, some old punk straight outta Camden, all at once. SOLD!

Lydia Lunch on the left. Photo: Richard Kern.

Debbie Harry being cool. Photo: Chris Walter/Getty Images

The leather jacket felt heavy, not at all soft to the touch. The red, soft interior lining was ripped at the seams at the arms.

The exterior a bit roughed up, cracked and creased. It was and is a bit too big, by the fit I would guess it´s from the 80s.

It had had a life, and now it was a part of my life.

Since that day in the thrift shop, I have kept thinking, musing, of who the previous owner(s) was/were.

Was it a man or a woman, or both or none? Where had they lived, what music did they listen to, what concerts had this jacket taken part in? Had it been stored in a loft, or had it just been removed from the shoulders of its previous owner?

It had to have belonged to a cool person. Could I be a cool person as well?

2009 was rough. I will spare you (or mostly me) the details, as I do not have the skills as a writer to depict my emotions and experiences at that time as anything other than quite banal. So forgive me the following.

But every time I look at this jacket, as I put it on, a very specific point in time returns to me, and a mixed bag of feelings along with it.

(I have been a good girl and gone to therapy to learn to FEEL my EMOTIONS, and the emotions are embarrasment, arousal and sorrow all at once. What a load to hold for this poor jacket!)

So. This point in time is nighttime. It is late fall or early winter.

I see my feet, wearing thrifted Doc Martens, trodding behind (or besides?) a beautiful man, over cobblestone, and it is probably drizzling a bit, as it always is here, in the rainiest city in Europe.

I am walking in a way that is not natural for me. A wider stance, stomping almost, my posture a bit more hunched over.

Probably thinking: “I can be tough, I can be cool, I can be like him, and then maybe he will fall in love with me?”.

Yes, this is cringe. But cringe is me.

From the aforementioned therapy, I am still learning and working of empathizing with my past selves. And I have empathy and understanding for myself at that time, in that place, for daring, posing, being a mess, and for feeling truly lost and homeless in life.

So despite the leather jacket, I was, in fact, not cool (and not literally homeless either, and no, he did also not fall in love with me).

I had no chill at 24. I have more now, at 38, but still tend to overthink and analyze, and I realize that I have all my life made myself malleable to any situation and to anyone´s company.

Not cool, but very human.

Back to the item in my closet.

I probably sought an armor for protection, at that time.

The heavy, rough leather jacket was the perfect tool to help create a new image, a new chapter in my story for myself.

Not necessarily a true story, the story of being a sensitive little tortoise inside a shell a bit to big, torn between wanting to hide and to be seen, to be perceived by others as a cool tortoise with a cool leather jacket.

*insert AI-generated pic of cool tortoise with a cool leather jacket*

I don´t wear this jacket very often, but I don´t think I can part with it.

Actually, here is a recent photo of me wearing it:

I appreciate that this jacket is a part of my story.

And that it has been a part of others stories, of love and lust and grief and youth and age.

And I hope that by telling stories about our clothes, by caring for them as well as about them, we can create true value.