About Aero Leathers

Aero Leather Clothing Ltd, based in Scotland, have been manufacturers and sole distributors for the world famous Aero leather jackets since 1983, although it took a couple of years after we made the first Aero jacket in 1981. The current Aero company is a family buisness which was founded by Ken & Lydia Calder who still help to run the company and are still the major shareholders. The roots of Aero, however, dates back to 1975, founded as a trading company specialising in original WWII flying jackets and vintage US work wear leather jackets. Our jackets have featured in many top blockbusters and are worn by many top Hollywood stars and celebrities.

Every Aero garment is individual – a classic in its own right – each made by one highly skilled leatherworker taking a pride in his or her finished garment, not made on a time and cost saving production line.

Extensive research and many years of manufacturing experience have gone into every aspect of the design and quality control of our jackets, to ensure that any garment bearing the “Aero Leather” label will provide decades of wear in the most hostile of environments and elements encountered in aviation, motorcycling, open top motoring and outdoor pursuits.

Every aspect of Aero is of the highest standard, the very best leather, selected and quality inspected by our technicians before they hand cut each individual panel. Then the lining is, again, carefully hand cut either from Alpaca wool, tweed, tartan, wool or silk. The leather panels and lining are then passed on to one of our sewing specialists who, on a traditional walking foot maching begins the process of constructing the item using stitching that is 3.25 times stronger than required. Once the item is built the specialist then puts his/her name to it and hands it to our Quality Inspector for the 28 point inspection that every item must undergo before leaving the premises.

US Government restrictions dictate that the slaughter of equine for hides was not permitted and as such the sourcing of hides must be from animals that have died from natural causes.

After expensive research, Aero managed to source the only tannery based in the States still capable of producing this unique hide to the original specifications, although today quality hides suitable for this type of tanning are still very scarce and so availability is very limited due to the fact that virtually all our chrome tanned leather is sourced from “natural death” horses with no slaughter involved. However, these days not all US Tanned Horsehide is made using domestic horsehide so we can no longer guarantee that this is the case

Over the years when ever we’ve found a truly authentic recreation of a vintage garment or a batch of deadstock classics we’ve added these to our range. Some items, such as our authentic denim range, have become stalwarts. We were the first UK company to stock re-issed Lee vintage dry denim, we’ve supplied Levi Vintage recreations for well over ten years and were also the first to stock the Wrangler Bluebell range, picking up deadstock vintage pieces long before the relaunch and before Bluebell became this seasons “hot” brand. Other rare finds have included jackets by Grenfell, Harris Tweed suits and overcoats, hand painted ties from the 1950s, Japanese sweatshirts by Slapshot, a limited edition of Levi Chinos unaged and totally exclusive and unique to Aero, some of the best local knitwear and classic footwear from the finest cobblers in Northampton and many more small lots of very special rarities. Sadly most of these items are very transient, available in limited quatities for an all too short period of time, then lost forever but we have found more rare and collectable pieces this year, some are already on line, others are on order or in transit.