Why We Buy: The Leather Jacket No One Can Shut Up About

'Why we buy' is a series on examining the various motivations for why we buy the things we buy using case studies from my own experience

In the world of fashion, some things are slow burns. Other things? Hit from the very first instant. Back in September 2024, before I could check the season’s showings from my fav brands on the Vogue app, I started hearing about this leather jacket Tibi had shown in their Spring 2025 show.

Dafne featured it in her IG stories with a simple caption — “crowd favorite”. There were forum discussions about the silhouette(was it a jacket or a blazer?), questions about the exact color (is it a brown or a burgundy?), and people talking about how this was the one piece they had pre-ordered already.

As time went on, the hype built up. Fashion goes through this interesting cycle. There’s the show and the hype about six months ahead of when the clothes will launch. THEN, the hype shifts because the current season launches. So, there was the Spring 2025 show, then Fall 2024 launches, which take over the hype cycle. This jacket, though, refuses to be forgotten. It keeps coming up in discussions over and over, even though there are so many other things to be discussed in those same circles, including the current Fall + Winter pieces.

When Hayes contacts me about my picks for Spring 2025 order, I HAD to include this jacket, right? OR did I? I will be honest, I wasn’t as in love as everyone else was. But curiosity takes over, maybe peer pressure takes over too. WHAT IS IT about this jacket that everyone loves? What intrigues me was how lightweight it promised to be, the oversized silhouette without being boxy, and that gorgeous “is it a brown or a burgundy” color. That said, I have a policy of only purchasing pieces if there is truly nothing else like it in my closet. Luckily for me, I had just gifted my one leather jacket to my cousin on her last visit. So, I included it in my pre-order.

Living in Los Angeles and my store order having to be shipped from a little island in Georgia, I usually receive my pre-ordered items much later than most other people. In my experience it usually goes in this order: People on the east coast who order directly through e-commerce receive their stuff first, then people who can visit the NYC/St Simons stores, and then the folks who pre-ordered from the stylists, usually in the order of how far they live from either of those two stores. See I don’t mind waiting, of course, but the wait usually means I don’t get to form my own opinions BEFORE seeing what others are saying. That usually works out just fine, since I don’t mind having contrasting opinions. But in this case, the hype was real.

And it was looking like it was living up to the hype. The reviews start coming in. People from 5’2 and under to 5’10 and over were all loving the fit of the jacket, from the smallest to the biggest sizes. The color, we had decided, was a true Ring 3 color, an ish color, neither a brown, nor a burgundy, somewhere deliciously in between. People started posting their reviews, modeling the jacket with all different kinds of outfits and truth be told? It was working. In every scenario, for every person.

Amy smilovic

showed it on the LIVE and it looked every bit exciting as it did in people’s reviews. NOW I am excited to receive mine.

I receive my pre-orders on a Friday, a whole two weeks after I read the first review. I get through my workday, clean my inbox for the week, and get ready to try on the pieces. I choose to try on the jacket at the end, mostly because I am way more excited about this beautiful red vest and skirt combo.

If you care to know, the red combo? Absolute love. Decide to keep. Then I try on this dress, which looks and feels SO beautiful on the model but just feels off on me. Now I know you’re here to read about the jacket not the dress but I promise I have a point, keep reading. OK so see the dress has so many elements I like, it is simple despite the cutouts, slightly off/edgy BECAUSE of the cutouts, and I am a sucker for white dresses. BUT, I could not get over the A-line silhouette. Something about it just felt too lady and too feminine. While the fabrication and the cutouts set that off nicely in an objective, absolute sense, I usually have a hard time getting over hangups about a piece’s silhouette. So the dress was a no. The next thing I try on? THE jacket. With the dress I had just rejected.

Uh oh, it feels off. Color was a love. Fabric was a love (seriously so soft and pliable, just delicious high quality leather). But that damn silhouette again! It feels too overly feminine also. I couldn’t describe it right away, because it seems counter intuitive for a leather jacket to come across as ‘feminine’, but it just feels more delicate than I usually like my clothes to be. I think it was a combination of that lightweight leather and the color, but most importantly, that bubble-ish hem. It was made so beautifully that I couldn’t help but get this ‘precious’ feeling off of it. This confuses me, because I had seen countless photos and videos of the jacket so far, and never gotten this feeling. So I decide the fault must be in the dress, and I just needed to try it on with other outfits.

OK I do not have a photo of the dress with the jacket, but this shows one of the outfits I tried where I kept feeling it was too precious for my style

It was too late by this point. I try it with a pair of pants, same issue. Next I try it on with a skirt (don’t ask me why I thought skirt was the right idea if the problem is an overly flowy feeling), same thing. I feel too ‘lady’, which nothing wrong with that but just not how I like to feel. At this point, Anurag chimes in with, “if you have to work this hard to make something work, maybe you shouldn’t buy it.” He is right!

I know about the full body yes. I myself follow the rule of “if it’s not a hell yes it’s a no” when making purchases of any kind. Then why did I keep trying to make this work? One might say it’s the hype and the wanting to be like my friends who all loved this, but I believe it was more from a place of curiosity. How could this one piece work so well for everyone but me?!

But it’s dark and I am tired so I put it aside. I post my review and experience, mentioning how the jacket didn’t work for me and I get the typical always helpful responses from the group.

“It looks great but of course you need to feel great in it.” Agreed.

“Have you tried sizing up?” Yes, I thought about it.

“Have you tried sizing down?” Yes, I thought about that too. Maybe it just needs to be slightly shorter.

“Style it with pants” I tried.

“Let it grow on you, it’s a new shape” But I don’t usually mind slouchy, big shapes so is it really a TOTALLY new shape?

Then, the wise Linda commented, “You may find this comment crazy, but here goes— I tried the red outfit and leather jacket on the other day, and I couldn’t get comfortable in the red, and then the jacket just felt perfect. I’m thinking now they are so different it’s hard to wrap your mind around both, and you need to wait a day and just try the jacket.” Interesting. I file this away to consider before I ship it back.

Usually I pack up my consignment box and ship it back right away. You see, I am pretty decisive about this stuff. But since I had received this box on a Friday, I had the whole weekend before I could drop it off at the post office. Saturday, I wore the red combo. I have a policy, will I wear this new piece I am adding to my closet tomorrow? If the answer is no, I usually don’t add it to my closet. For the red combo, the answer was yes so I wore it to the grocery store (yes, really), and the movies (do not recommend watching the new Captain America). No thought given to the jacket again.

I usually ask Anurag to take candid shots when I try a new shape. Love to see it in movement.

Sunday, I am getting ready to go get a lymphatic massage. Dress code is comfy and something I won’t mind getting oil on post-massage. I put on a to-go outfit, simple washable cashmere top and shiny stellas. I need a jacket to throw on top. SHOULD I DARE?! I try on the jacket and suddenly, it feels perfect. I don’t mind the silhouette anymore. It feels just the appropriate amount of messy as I usually like to feel. Suddenly the bubble hem doesn’t feel too precious. The fabric feels delicious as it always did, the color feels perfect and of course it goes with what I am wearing and is versatile, but all that I knew already. It’s the overall feeling that is new. THIS IS BRAND NEW INFORMATION!!

We will ignore that no one in this house knows how to clean mirrors well

I think about trying it on with 5 other outfits, as conventional wisdom says, to ensure it truly works. But I don’t have time, I need to go to that appointment. I am tempted to wear the jacket to my appointment, but if I do that I am keeping it. (seriously, don’t wear stuff out if you want to return it, it’s gross). Somehow, after all that doubt on Friday, I have absolute clarity in this moment. Much like what shopping is usually like for me. It is suddenly a hell yes. I ask Anurag what he thinks. He says it looks the same. But I feel different. And it feels right. What changed? Idk, maybe Linda was right. Maybe it was the white dress. Maybe I was just feeling some sorta way on Friday.

It is difficult to separate how they feel about something and how you feel about something, I know that. I have bought things because they got on my radar by virtue of being popular and trendy. But I also know that there are many hype items that I never fall for, no matter how big the hype is (that silver shell necklace? I don’t get it). One has to wonder if I would have even tried on the jacket a second time (or ordered it at all) if not for the hype. Probably not. But it kinda doesn’t matter. All your choices are influenced by something, and there’s no such thing as a truly original thought. Also, I don’t see any pride in calling myself ‘un-infuencable’. I have never sought out to NOT buy stuff only because it is trendy and consider that to be as much herd mentality as it is to follow trends to a T.

What I do know is that I love the jacket. I love how it looks, and I know it will work for my lifestyle functionally because it just did! With zero thought put in, and no overthinking, it felt right. And maybe that’s the best reason to buy anything. So I cut off the tag and wear it to the massage.