Care and feeding. This category favors the textile garment. Leather needs frequent care to prevent it from drying out; regular cleaning and treating are necessary for a long garment life. (Then again, a lot of riders consider leather care in the same light as polishing chrome or waxing the Corvette; it's a labor of love, a chance to be close to a cherished possession. Only you know which side of the fence you're on.) Textiles can be thrown in the washer. Done deal.
Feel and texture. OK, another one for leather. While it's true that a well-worn textile outfit can become as comfortable as old blue jeans, there's just something about leather. What's more, both leather and textiles need some breaking-in time. The advantage of textiles here is that you can accelerate the process by washing them.
Weather protection. Leather is a good insulator, but it's nearly impossible to make it waterproof. With advances such as the Gore-Tex layering system, it's possible to make textiles essentially waterproof. (Why the hedge? Even though Gore-Tex resists water intrusion, it's possible, by messing up the design, to have a coat that may not leak through the skin itself but will get you wet anyway. Once more: The more expensive jackets and suits do a better job here.) If you need all-weather protection, textile is the way to go-or always pack a rain suit.
Wear resistance. In our experience, this is a push. Undeniably, leather takes on a wonderful patina after a pile of miles, but textiles-the good ones, anyway-wear extremely well if kept clean. Allow dirt and road grime to get worked into a textile suit, and you may not get it all the way out. That's partially true of light-colored leathers, but they can often be redyed.
Repairability. No question, leather holds a big advantage here, even if it's mainly because so many companies know how to work with leather. It's been around for so long, and the large leather-jacket makers are so well-versed in repairs, that getting a jacket patched up is not difficult. True enough, you can get your Aerostich repaired, but the simple truth is that it's unwise to spend a lot of money repairing a $200 textile jacket-at that price point, the value, not the material, is the issue.
Weight. Hands down for textiles. Modern fabrics are astoundingly strong, and they provide incredible strength for their weight.
The Bottom Line
Have you been keeping score? Who wins, leather or textiles? Honestly, we can't say. After due deliberation, we can't come up with an iron-clad reason to pick one material over the other. In fact, to look only at the construction shortchanges the purpose of protective motorcycle gear: Buy what you like, what fits you-so that you'll wear it every time you hop on a motorcycle.
Care & Feeding
Just as leather and textiles make dramatically different garments, their care needs are also far different. But they have one thing in common: A jacket or suit, regardless of the material, needs to be regularly cleaned and inspected. This sounds obvious, sure, but we still see lots of cracked, neglected leather out there, smelling up the place right next to the guy in an Aerostich so grimy it's hard to tell what color it's supposed to be.
Which brings us to the first step of smart apparel care: Do it often. Let bug guts, road grime and bird droppings dry on the surface and they'll be much harder to remove later. Take a few moments every so often to wipe your garments down with a moist cloth.
Leather Cleaning and Treatment
Leather is a hide (think of your own skin) and needs to be treated as such. For light cleaning, use a damp cloth with water only. Insect parts need to be hydrated before they'll loosen their lock on the surface, so you'll probably have to repeat the moisten/ wipe/pat dry cycle a few times. While you're doing this, look for cracking or chafing and closely inspect the stitching between panels; if you can pull the panels apart and see a gap or feel the thread stretch, it's too loose.