First Impressions: Aether Apparel Horizon Jacket
You know that feeling. You don’t really NEED new gear, but you’ve always wanted a jacket in a certain color and you just kind of keep an eye out for one. Yeah. That feeling.
That’s been me, just kind of keeping an eye out for a sorta casual olive green motorbike jacket. There aren’t many of them out there for women. I’d been interested in the Knox Levett Jacket, but the need for an armored shirt was an extra layer of fiddling I didn’t really want to contend with. Belstaff makes a few as well, but I didn’t really want to deal with waxed cotton - while it looks super cool, waxed cotton needs to be retreated every so often and it’s kind of a pain in the ass to do that. I’d seen the Aether Apparel Horizon on Union Garage’s website back in the winter when I bought my Stylmartin boots, but of course the Horizon’s been discontinued and the Discovery Green color was no longer in stock. Bigtime bummer.
Recently though, I was doing yet another search for the perfect casual olive green motorbike jacket and decided to hit up Ebay for the Aether Horizon jacket. Like some sort of magic, the Ebay search function returned one Aether Horizon. In Discovery Green. In MY SIZE. Only worn once. The listing said the jacket was being sold without armor, but I made an offer, mentioning that my offer reflected the need to buy armor. The seller countered with an all-shipped price that included the armor, and a deal was made.
I’ve had the jacket for a week now, and the timing’s been perfect (it’s too hot for my leather jacket and my Roadcrafter pants are on a field trip back to Duluth to have the main zipper replaced) so I’ve been wearing it daily. My first impressions are great - I love this jacket.
Technical features include pit zips and back vents (the back vents weren’t mentioned in any literature, so hello, serendipitous surprise), a snap up zipper cover that can be snapped when you’re actually wearing your gloves, a discrete cell phone pocket on the left arm (that’s actually where I keep my gas card for easy access), and since it’s made for ladies, there are hip adjustment zips on both sides of the waist. Pear-shaped me really appreciates that feature for an extra bit of fit customization. D3O Armor covers elbows, shoulders, and back. For added nighttime visibility, there’s reflective piping along the neck. The jacket’s made from Japanese field nylon and the seam sealed construction gives you a good amount of water resistance (supposedly - I’ve only worn my Horizon in a very light drizzle with no issues).
I own several non-motorbike Aether Apparel pieces (their women’s Anorak jacket and a couple of sweaters) and have been really impressed with how their stuff holds up over the long haul. If that’s any indication, I’m expecting to get a long life out of my Horizon jacket.
If you like the casual look and want to give the Horizon a go, unfortunately you can’t buy direct from Aether any more because the jacket’s been discontinued (maybe check out some of their newer ladies’ motorbike jackets? I was really considering the Chase in the sand color). Last I checked you can still get the Horizon in Total Eclipse (a cool looking dark blue) in limited sizes at Revzilla or at Union Garage.
