Most people cannot pull off a leather jacket – this is just an unfortunate fact of life. Now normally this wouldn’t be a problem. For instance, since you would look like a weirdo if you wore a top hat nowadays; most people don’t wear top hats. But the major failure of our society is our inadequacy in conveying the message that almost no one looks good in a leather jacket, and so people continue to wear them. It makes me so angry. I’m just walking around campus, enjoying the finally reasonable weather, when some poser walks by looking like he just came from the James Dean impersonator contest and got into a solid last place.

People don’t even respect the leather jacket anymore; they just wear it with whatever. You can’t just wear anything with a leather jacket and expect it to match. In fact, it is one of the hardest items of clothing to pair with. In general, if people stuck to dark jeans most people would probably at least look average. But please, if you are going to wear a graphic tee, don’t add a leather jacket to try and elevate your look – you are doing the opposite. If someone wears a bunch of clothes made out of garbage, fine, whatever. But if you wear your average clothes with Giorgio Armani patent leather shoes, it doesn’t elevate your look. Strive for consistency in your outfits. If you want to dress poorly, fine, just don’t drag your poor leather jackets into it.

The jackets never fit right either. Most of them are too boxy, making the wearer look like a 5-year-old raiding their parent’s closet and playing dress up. But even if they fit the way intended, they just don’t look appealing on a lot of people. Honestly, some of these designs I see are just ridiculous: the number of zippers and buttons on your jacket makes you look like a rejected Final Fantasy character. Oh, and if you don’t ride a motorcycle, you don’t just get a free pass to wear a biker jacket. Bikers risk their lives on the road every day to get that right. And don’t even get me started on red leather jackets.

Here is the issue though: everyone who puts on a leather jacket thinks they turn into the coolest kid around. I have to admit, I am no exception. I have a leather jacket and when I put it on, I immediately feel so powerful, like I absorbed the life force of the cow whose skin I’m wearing. There isn’t any way to fix this but to be honest about how a leather jacket looks on someone – which no one will ever do. I certainly don’t have the confidence to tell a friend that a beloved article of clothing looks awful on them. So, I guess we just all need to do a bit of self-reflection and decide as a society if we want to keep the lie of the leather jacket going.