10-Year Review: Schott’s Café Racer Is Still the Best Leather Jacket

This is indisputable fact: Schott NYC makes the American leather jacket.

I’ve been writing about leather jackets for almost a decade (yes, mom, I know my job is weird) and I’m comfortable saying that they’re the most influential brand in the space. Schott NYC is nearly a hundred years old, they’ve made jackets for the US Armed Forces, and they’re still made in Union, New Jersey (a short trip from my NYC apartment).

They make everything from World War 2-style flight jackets to horsehide truckers, but I think the best balance of cool and easy to wear is the sleek and versatile Waxed Natural Pebbled Cowhide Café Leather Jacket 530.

It doesn’t matter who you are, what you wear with it, or how cool you are — this jacket just goes with everything. I’ve been wearing mine for ten years and I’m going to give you my take on the pros, cons, sizing, and many price jumps.

Schott Café Racer Jacket Pros & Cons

If you’ve got somewhere to be, here’s a quick summary of the review:

What I liked:

• The perfect balance of edgy and effortless; you don’t need to get a new wardrobe to wear this style
• Made in the USA (I visited them a few years after first publishing this review)
• Tough, waxy, thick, leather; good balance of substantial, comfortable, and cool looking
• Designed with extra shoulder mobility, as it’s designed for riding motorbikes
• Zippers are heavy duty and high quality; I’ve had zero issues in my years of wearing it
• Hand pockets and inside pocket are roomy and secure

Downsides, not dealbreakers:

• The fit is pretty slim and short; not ideal for bigger guys
• Fit can’t be adjusted with waist cinches
• Some prefer knit waistbands and wrists to block wind
• Not the most heavyweight leather jacket: designed for shorter motorbike rides, it’s not the super thick leather some guys prefer
• The zips on the handwarmer pockets scrape your hands whenever you use them
• Not ideal for really cold temperatures; it’s more made for protection than for warmth

The Look: Why I Recommend Schott’s Cafe Racer Over Their “Perfecto” Jacket

• Minimalist, clean, sleek look; not a lot of zips and buckles
• Mandarin style café collar
• Two zippered hand warmer pockets, one chest pocket
• Bi-swing back panel and underarm gussets
• No waist cinches to adjust fit

Leather jackets are cool, but sometimes they’re too cool. Schott’s famous for their cross-zip jacket called the Perfecto, but it’s covered in zippers, buckles, studs, and stars.

It looks great if you can pull it off, but it doesn’t work with a lot of wardrobes and it takes a fair amount of work and confidence to make such a conspicuous jacket look effortless. (And effortlessness is the essence of coolness, of course.)

The Cafe Racer doesn’t have that problem. Although both are considered motorcycle jackets, the Cafe Racer is polar opposite of the Perfecto: low key, minimalist, and with very few features to draw the eye.

The Cafe Racer is just easy to wear, works with a ton of outfits, and despite its versatility that mandarin collar gives it just the right amount of “edge” you want from a leather jacket — but not so much of it that people will ask you why you own one if you don’t ride a motorcycle.

To sum up: it’s approachably cool. It elevates anyone who wears it, but not so much that they have to justify it.

Features

• Three zipper-closure pockets: two handwarmers, one chest
• One internal chest pocket that snaps closed
• Bi-swing back: lots of shoulder mobility
• Cotton flannel body lining, poly-satin lined sleeves

There’s not a ton to talk about as far as features, which is the way I like it.

You’ve got two zippered handwarmer pockets on the sides and a zippered pocket on the left side of the chest, all with chain pulls.

The jacket’s pockets are surprisingly roomy, especially the internal chest pocket, which extends far down your body. I like that all the pockets secure closed with zips or (for the internal one) clasps: I never have to worry about losing my wallet if I take it off or stuff it into a bag.

(Let’s not forget that’s one of the many great things about leather jackets: you can beat it up and stuff it into a wrinkly bundle and it’ll still look great as soon as you’re ready to wear it.)

The handwarmers and the fit are the two issues I hear about the most with this jacket. A lot of guys hate the way the zips scrape your hands whenever you reach inside. And as for the fit…

Schott’s Cafe Racer: Fit and Sizing

• Order your usual jacket size
• My “Large” is 22.5 inches across the chest, which is normal
• It’s short and slim; bigger guys won’t love that

Since it’s designed for wheeling around corners on a motorbike, you might think this would be a roomy jacket, but motorcycle jackets tend to fit short (so that you’re not sitting on it) and slim (so it doesn’t flap around too much in the wind).

This super minimalist approach to design causes issues for some guys: a lot of jackets have cinches at the waist to adjust the fit, which you don’t get here.

Some guys also prefer an elastic knit waistband and wrist cuffs to block wind, which you don’t get here either.

The Cafe Racer has a 22.5-inch chest and 25.5-inch back length. At 6 feet tall and a fluctuating weight, I’ve worn this jacket at 170 pounds and at 200 pounds without issue.

Then again, I exercise a fair amount: if a significant amount of your weight is from fat and not muscle, you may not love the fit and you might prefer a bomber jacket, which has a stretchy waist and (typically) a roomier fit.

Does This Jacket Stretch With Wear?

• Yes! A little.

When I first got this jacket, I could barely zip it up and almost went with an XL instead. But the clerks at Schott’s Lower East Side store laughed and promised me that if I did, I’d be back in a year complaining about the sizing.

They were right, of course: within a few weeks the jacket had stretched to fit me perfectly.

So don’t worry if it’s a little snug at first. The cool thing about leather (be it jacket or boots) is that the heat and friction of wearing the stuff makes it stretch and conform to the shape of your body.

Schott’s Leather

• Made from American cattle
• Full aniline, drum dyed, hand cut, chrome tanned, cowhide leather
• Good balance of stretch and heft
• Pebbly appearance
• Light wax coating for weather resistance adds a subtle shine

Here are the terms they use to describe their leather, here we go:

Full Aniline, drum dyed, hand cut, drummed, chrome-tanned, cowhide leather from plump & spongy hides, made with an oil and aniline finish that gives a rustic old look and a soft “hand”.

Leather production is enormously complicated, but these definitions might help:

• Aniline: Dyed with soluble dyes without adding pigment to the finish; not much is done to change or smooth the leather’s surface, giving it a more natural look.
• Drum dyeing: The leather’s tumbled in a rotating drum, which both softens it and ensures maximum dye penetration.
• Chrome tanning: Most leather is either vegetable tanned or chrome tanned, and while some enthusiasts prefer the old fashioned “veg” tanning, chrome tanning makes a leather that’s stretchier and more resistant to water and heat.

One of my favorite aspects of this leather is that it’s so clearly from an animal: it’s imperfect. It’s asymmetrical. It’s wrinkly in some spots, pebbly in others, and smoother in others still.

Really expensive jacket brands will throw away a lot of their leather as they try to ensure every piece is near-identical and free of marks from the animal’s life.

Really bad jacket brands won’t pay any attention to leather selection (called “clicking” at the factory), making a jacket that looks weird and stretches in the wrong places.

Schott’s is in the Goldilocks zone: not so perfect that it’s stupidly expensive, not so imperfect that it looks like it was made with a blindfold on.

How to Care for Your Leather Jacket

• Schott suggests Otter Wax’s Leather Oil
• Made with safflower oil and Vitamin E

Leather is skin, and it lasts longer and looks better if it’s moisturized regularly.

Jackets don’t get anywhere near as much abuse as boots or even trousers, so you don’t need to condition your jacket all that much — every year or so is fine for regular use.

Condition it more if you’re wearing it on a motorbike or if it gets a lot of rain. (Rain dries out leather the same way a shower dries out your face. Moisturize after both!)

I asked Schott themselves, and they recommend Otter Wax’s products for cleaning and conditioning, though they say the cheaper Lexol (better known for being used on car seats) will also work fine for keeping the leather moist.

You can spot clean with a gentle leather cleaner. Don’t use Saddle Soap, use something like Cobbler’s Choice Leather Spot Cleaner. (It’s kind of what I have just lying around, though. Any leather cleaner will do.)

Is Schott’s Cafe Racer Jacket Comfortable?

• The leather’s midweight: a good balance of heavy and comfy

In leather terminology, it’s about 3 ounces: about is 1.3 to 1.5 millimeters thick. It’s a great level for a jacket: thinner than boots, thicker than dress shoes, it has a nice amount of heft without being so heavy that it’s stiff or takes a ton of breaking in.

That’s not just from the thickness, it’s also from the aforementioned chrome tanning and tumbling. Again, leather is super complicated, but all you really need to know is that Schott knows how to choose a leather that’s the ideal mix of strong and stretchy for a longlasting jacket.

If it were softer or thinner, like a jacket made of lambskin or sheepskin, it would be suitable for casual wear but not quite tough enough for motorcycle riding. I had a sheepskin leather jacket for years, but it just didn’t go the distance.

You probably don’t actually need a jacket for racing between cafés, but you might miss the heft of a steerhide jacket if you went with a softer lambskin (although it would be cheaper.

Price: Is Schott Café Racer Worth It?

• $1,105

When it was first released in 1956, this was called a “Leather Racing Shirt” and cost the grand old price of $28.95.

When I bought mine, it was $850.

But it’s been a bumpy decade for the economy and today this jacket costs $1,105. Usually, it’s a little cheaper on Huckberry.

Here’s the thing: I used to live in China and had more than one leather jacket made for me at their markets. I also once got a leather jacket in Australia for under $200 and another made of sheepskin after moving to NYC. None of those jackets are with me today. The leather was subpar and the construction was formless and forgettable.

A leather jacket is simply something you need to either spend serious money on or not buy at all. Cheap ones don’t last and they look like they’re cheap, even to people who don’t spend their time reading two-thousand-word jacket reviews.

But if you get the right jacket and take care of it, it’ll be with you for literal decades.

Is Schott the cheapest good leather jacket? No, I’d probably give that title to Thursday. But if you’d rather try classic cowhide over softer lambskin — if you’d rather a leather jacket that feels like a leather jacket should, cowhide is the best option and Schott NYC is the best brand.