Must

The Holy Grail garment into which I intend to fit again one day is an espresso-brown, classic leather bomber jacket. It's a men's model and therefore extremely well made (complete with inside breast pocket), and it used to fit me when I was around a size 10-12.

(To quantify, I will have to be ten inches smaller about the "high hip" before it hangs properly on me again.)

I bought it in 1993 for approximately half a month's wages, wore it on every possible occasion until I could no longer shut it around the aforementioned "high hip," and finally, tired of its constant reproach but unable to jettison it, two or three years ago I laid it to rest in my basement.

My mistake.

The experts at Oregon Leather Company assure that there is no way to get the musty smell of mold out of a lined leather jacket. The internet, however, begs to differ.

I swabbed it (the jacket, not the internet) all over with an alcohol-water mix, then hung it to dry for a week over my ozone-generating air purifier.

Better. But still musty.

So today I basically soaked it in alcohol. Then I hung it to dry outdoors in the wind.


Wet leather jacket weighs a ton.

I don't dare hang it near a heater because it reeks of isopropyl alcohol and would probably catch fire, but maybe by tomorrow I can move it indoors.

I've got heavy-duty conditioner standing by--supposing that the leather survives its radical demustification.