I’ve got a rhetorical question for you, is wearing a leather skirt together with a leather jacket too much?
Well, based on the current fashion fixation with all things leather, the answer is a resounding no.
But “no” needs a bit of explaining, because leather-on-leather either looks expensive or looks like fancy dress, and the gap between the two is narrower than people think.
The thing that decides it: something soft in the middle
Look at what sits between the skirt and the jacket here. A Portmans knit. Soft, matte, entirely ordinary.
That knit is doing all the work. Two pieces of leather with a third hard, shiny thing between them (a satin shell, a vinyl top, anything with a sheen) and the outfit turns into armour. Put something soft and quiet in the middle and the leather reads as texture instead of uniform.
So the rule I would give anyone nervous about it: leather, then something soft, then leather. Knit, cotton, silk, cashmere if you are lucky. It does not much matter which, as long as it does not shine.
Break the colour, or break the finish
The second thing that saves leather-on-leather is refusing to match.
Head-to-toe black leather in one finish is the costume version. Change a single thing and it stops being a look and starts being an outfit:
Different colours. Here the jacket is a teal green Hunt No More and the skirt is black. Nobody would mistake that for a matching set.
Different finishes. A matte skirt with a slightly waxed or distressed jacket. Same colour, different surface, and the eye reads two garments rather than one.
Different weights. A heavy biker jacket over a soft, fluid leather skirt. The contrast does the same job as a colour change.
You only need one of the three. All three at once is trying too hard in the other direction.
How much leather is too much
If you can get your hands on a skirt, dress, top and pants (all in leather, of course) you will be bang on trend for the autumn/winter season.
But I would not wear them all at once, and I would not tell you to either. Two leather pieces is a look. Three is a phase. The outfit needs somewhere for the eye to rest.
The pieces worth owning, in the order I would buy them:
The jacket. Endlessly useful, better with age, and the fastest way there is to toughen up something floaty. Mine goes over dresses far more often than over jeans.
The skirt. More versatile than people expect. It behaves like any other skirt, it just catches the light. A black leather mini with opaque tights will carry you through an entire Melbourne winter.
The pants. Buy these last and try on many. The fit has to be exact in a way the other two do not.
A leather top I would leave alone unless you are very committed. It has nowhere to hide.
Buying leather without spending a fortune
Leather is the category where secondhand genuinely beats new, and it is not close.
Real leather outlives its first owner. A jacket worn for five years has softened into something you simply cannot buy in a shop, and it will be hanging on an op shop rack for a fraction of what a stiff new one costs. If I could get every budget shopper to buy one thing used, it would be this.
What to check before you hand over the money:
The lining. A torn lining is a cheap fix at any alterations place. Cracked leather is not fixable at all, walk away from that one.
The zips. Run every zip the whole way. Replacing a jacket zip costs more than most people expect.
The smell. Old leather smells like leather. If it smells of damp, put it down. That does not come out.
The shoulders, on a jacket. The one measurement nobody can alter. If the shoulder seam sits where your shoulder ends, everything else can be taken in.
Looking after it so it lasts
Leather is the least demanding fabric in your wardrobe as long as you leave it alone.
Do not dry-clean it unless it is genuinely marked. Every clean strips oil out of the hide, and a jacket that has been cleaned repeatedly goes stiff and papery. Airing it overnight deals with almost everything.
Hang it on a wide hanger. A thin wire one will dent the shoulders permanently, which is the same reason you never fold a leather skirt over a hanger bar.
If it gets wet, let it dry slowly. Away from the heater, away from the sun. Forced heat is what causes cracking.
Condition it once a year, or when it starts to feel dry to the touch. A cheap leather balm from the shoe repair place is fine; you do not need anything fancy.
Store it out of plastic. Leather needs to breathe. A dry-cleaning bag left on over summer will do more damage than a whole winter of wearing it.
A well-treated leather jacket is one of the very few garments that genuinely improves with age. Mine looks better now than the day it arrived.
What I actually did that day
I thought I’d give you a demo, even though I nearly froze my butt off doing so.
My grand idea was to take some pics then slip into something furry and warm that covered every bit of flesh, before heading off to watch my eldest son’s basketball game. But time got away and I ended up trotting around in this while most mums were cosy in trackies.
Oh, the things we do for fashion!
(This one is from 2013. The eBay listing that used to sit here ended long ago, so the link has gone. The styling rules have not dated at all.)
If there is leather in your wardrobe going unworn because you are not sure what to put with it, that is exactly the knot a wardrobe edit untangles, usually without buying a thing.
And now you’re Looking Good Girls.
“Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,” says the Lord Almighty. Zechariah 4:6.