Interludes are short segments between regular episodes with no editing but WITH leather creaking. It's a chance to hear a little more about what's going on in my life. This time we think about breeches.
Ever wondered why leather breeches command such a revered status in leather uniform wardrobe? Join me as we explore this fascinating world, touching on their equestrian and military origins, the practicality of their design and the importance of the saddle patch. Whether you're a leather enthusiast or just curious, you'll gain insights into purchasing these unique pants, from standard options to personalised fits. Don't miss as I spotlight Langlitz, a Portland-based family business specialising in custom leather breeches.
Leather is not just about the gear, it's a journey. As we journey together, you'll learn why the right uniform and tall boots are crucial. I'll guide you through an array of pants options and why leather lovers gravitate towards breeches. Listen as I share my thoughts on various vendors, including Mr S, Rough Trade, and the Leatherman NYC, along with my views on Pakistani makers and the exciting Montera Leathers from Barcelona. So, buckle up and get ready for an unforgettable leather adventure. Safe travels on your leather journey till we meet again!
Interludes are short segments between regular episodes with no editing but WITH leather creaking. It's a chance to hear a little more about what's going on in my life. This time we think about breeches.
Ever wondered why leather breeches command such a revered status in leather uniform wardrobe? Join me as we explore this fascinating world, touching on their equestrian and military origins, the practicality of their design and the importance of the saddle patch. Whether you're a leather enthusiast or just curious, you'll gain insights into purchasing these unique pants, from standard options to personalised fits. Don't miss as I spotlight Langlitz, a Portland-based family business specialising in custom leather breeches.
Leather is not just about the gear, it's a journey. As we journey together, you'll learn why the right uniform and tall boots are crucial. I'll guide you through an array of pants options and why leather lovers gravitate towards breeches. Listen as I share my thoughts on various vendors, including Mr S, Rough Trade, and the Leatherman NYC, along with my views on Pakistani makers and the exciting Montera Leathers from Barcelona. So, buckle up and get ready for an unforgettable leather adventure. Safe travels on your leather journey till we meet again!
Welcome to Full Cow, a podcast about leather, kink and BDSM. My name is Edge, my pronouns are he, him, and I am your host. Welcome to another interlude, the episode between episodes, offered raw and unedited, but with leather creaking. And since my last interlude was about shirts, I thought it would make sense to do one on pants, specifically breeches. You know the problem with leather shirts. You know I bemoaned the fact that I open up the closet, talk about privilege, and all I see are uniform shirts, uniform shirts, uniform shirts. Well, that's because shoulders exist and leather is only so stretchy, and so the easiest leather shirts are ones that button up, and that leads us to the uniform shirt. Now, the good news is, when it comes to pants, there are so many more options and I think, ideally, you will have a good pair of plain black leather five pocket jeans. It's a good standard and it's something that is versatile and you can wear all the time. But the truth is that for many of us, since the image of the leather man we carry around in our heads is now a man in leather uniform, the truth is that eventually you will want breeches, and there are tons of pants options there's carpenter pants and there's lace up pants and there's chaps and there's leather jeans and there's biker pants. But I think most men desire most leather people. I should say, excuse me, most leather people desire breeches.
Speaker 1:
Breaches have a couple of distinguishing characteristics. One they taper to the ankle and will often include a zip so that you can actually get the pants on and then zip them so they are tapered to the ankle. That is because breeches are made to be worn exclusively inside of tall boots, and by tall boots I mean knee high, 16, 18 inches, something like that. The other distinguishing feature of breeches is the saddle. Now, if you're wearing any sort of pants right now and if you reach down and feel underneath your buttocks, you know down in the taint area you should find the coming together of four seams in most pairs of pants. To understand the saddle and why those seams are problematic, we need to go back into thinking about where the helded breeches come from.
Speaker 1:
As leather people, we didn't invent hardly anything ourselves. We borrow things from other contexts and in this instance we go back to a military context, we go back to an equestrian context, we go back to the cavalry. If you've ever ridden a horse and I may have only once, but let's imagine I've ridden a horse a lot. If you've ever ridden a horse. It is hard upon your taint because it is bouncy, bouncy, bouncy, bouncy, bouncy upon your taint. And if you have these four seams coming together into a little knot of fabric right at your taint, that bouncy, bouncy, bouncy, bouncy, bouncy becomes quite painful over time. So the idea behind a saddle, which is like a big circular patch on the back of the pants, if it's truly saddled, it takes this meeting of the seams at the taint and disperses and distributes it so that there is no knot of fabric down there at your taint for when you're riding your horse going bouncy, bouncy, bouncy, bouncy, bouncy.
Speaker 1:
So the distinguishing characteristics of breeches are a saddle tapered to the ankle. Many of them will flare at the hips. This is again from an equestrian context. It's about giving your hips more room when you are sitting in a saddle. Those are more properly perhaps called jaw purse. That comes from the Indian military context and the reason we end up with breeches right because cavalry becomes mounted police, becomes police on motorcycles, which is the iron horse, becomes the thing we desire, becomes who we are. So you may have many pairs of leather pants I certainly encourage you to. But at the end of the day, I think most of us long for breeches, for that classic bluff leather uniform look.
Speaker 1:
So where do you buy breeches from? Well, ideally, of course, you're getting things custom and the custom breeches the Bentley. The Rolls Royce of leather breeches is Langlets. Langlets is a small family owned leather maker in Portland Oregon. That Actually isn't queer at all. They make motorcycle leathers for motorcyclists. However, they are very aware that they have an extraordinarily large queer customer base and all of the work they do is custom. They work in a very heavy-hide, very high quality construction and the shape, the aesthetics, the design of their breaches are perfectly classic.
Speaker 1:
There are two options with Langlets. There's the competition breaches, which don't include the flare, and then there's the rangers, which have the flare on the hips, ultimately customizable. You can get quilted padding on the knees. You can get stripes of different colors added. You can get quilted padding in the back. However, you lose your back pockets if you do that, and pockets are essential. So I do not have quilting on the back of my Langlets.
Speaker 1:
Langlets is expensive. When I bought mine, which was two years ago, a pair of competition breaches I think was about a thousand dollars. The rangers were a little bit more because I had the stripe added. They were like $1,200. That was two years ago. I'm not sure where their pricing is now. And because they are a small, family-run business and because they are so popular and because of the pandemic and because of labor shortages and supply chains, be prepared to wait, I think at this point, at least a year between ordering and receiving your order. So it's worth it.
Speaker 1:
I will say that Once you have Langlets you're like oh okay, I get it, I get it. I get why people like Langlets. It is worth it. However, it is a lot of money and a lot of time. So if we're thinking about off the rack options, you have a number of choices. I did check and Mr S is once again carrying what they're calling a uniform pant. Uniform pant is code for breaches and they have one with piping which I don't love. I don't think the aesthetics of it is perfect, but their plain black leather uniform pant looks perfectly serviceable at about $600.
Speaker 1:
Rough trade. I am not quite as big a fan of their breaches I am. I think the styling isn't exactly what I would want, but I am in general, a big fan of rough trade and I would recommend them as well. Now the Lender man NYC has a gorgeous pair of breaches because they have this really long extended saddle that kind of goes down the inside of the thighs. It's really beautiful. It's out of stock and my understanding is that it's been out of stock for a really long time. So that's disappointing because otherwise I would give them a strong recommendation.
Speaker 1:
You do have the option of going with one of the Pakistani makers. I've had friends who've had extraordinarily mixed results with that. So if you do that, I would suggest only spend money that you have to lose because you don't know what kind of product you're going to get and you don't know how well it's going to fit. I know people who've gotten stuff from Pakistan and it's perfect. I know people who got stuff from Pakistan. It was perfect. They ordered a second set exact same measurements and it was bizarrely wrong and then almost impossible to resolve in terms of tracking them down, getting them to correct the mistake. And this is even the sort of more well-known Pakistani maker. So be mindful of that.
Speaker 1:
If you're in Europe, I imagine you have more options. Like Rob or Mr B, I'm less familiar with them, and then in other international contexts. There are stores like Northbound which will probably have breaches off the rack. Northbound, I find, can skew a little fashion-y, which may be perfect for some people, but I am so much more about a classic aesthetic. The manufacturer I'm excited about and I haven't actually felt their work. I don't own any of their work, but I've seen it on Instagram and I've looked at their website and it's impressed me Monterra Leathers out of Barcelona.
Speaker 1:
If any of you listening have gotten anything from Monterra, I would really love you reaching out to me and letting me know your experience. The breaches I've seen on their website look exquisite. I can tell from the photo the quality of the leather, the weight of the hide, the quality of the construction. The design looks classic and aesthetically pleasing. And After 서울, I truly wonder if the If anyone were to ask me today hey, I want some leather breeches, where should I go?
Speaker 1:
Monterra would be on that list. I would ask first of all, do you want to get Langlets? And then they'd be like I don't want to wait a year, and then I would probably recommend probably Rough Trade, then Mr S, then Monterra. Yeah, I'm really excited about them as a manufacturer, even though I have no experience with them whatsoever. Other custom makers are certainly possibilities. Ben Orson in LA. I did work with them very early on when they were starting and now I have had a lot of friends starting to work with them. People are especially pleased with the amount of time they spend with the client to really get to know you and to get to know your needs. I also understand that they've been expanding their manufacturing capacity, bringing on a couple extra people, so Ben Orson is becoming a very popular custom option and beyond that, I'm not sure where I would send people. I wish the Leatherman NYC were still making their breeches or could do something custom, because their design is fantastic. I know that there are other manufacturers out there. I certainly don't know every leather manufacturer, but I know the ones I know Right.
Speaker 1:
So if you get a pair of breeches, then you're practically at bluff because you get a good, really affordable uniform shirt for Mr Regilio, who sadly, mr Regilio, does not have breeches period. They've got some leather pants that look really intriguing and that I've thought about buying. They do not have breeches. To be fair, you can faux breeches by simply tucking a pair of pants into your boots, wrapping them around your ankle and tucking them in no one's really going to tell about, no one will notice whether or not your butt is saddled, and it's really about making sure the pants are worn inside the boots. So for years I faux breeched with just my leather jeans. So that's an option for you and I don't want to say that it's not. And then that opens up Mr Regilio as an option. But at the end of the day, I imagine eventually you want true breeches and then the options become surprisingly more limited.
Speaker 1:
So I hope that you find an option that works for you and if you have any other questions about breeches or pants or leather in general, please remember that I have my Ask Edge segment where you can ask me anything. Hey, you know it's an AMA people, it's not just asking me questions about leather. Maybe you want to know what my favorite ice cream is. Maybe you want to know what TV shows I'd like to watch. I just would love to engage with you more and, quite frankly, I need some support in terms of generating content for the podcast and that creates a segment for me. So if you're a fan, please consider taking a moment and going to speakpipecom slash leather edge LTHREGE, or send me an email at ask at full cow Show.
Speaker 1:
That is my interlude for this week, this month, yeah, something like that. And I hope you get the breeches you want. I hope you get the uniform, you shirt you want and then, if you have tall boots, you're in bluff. Simple as that. And bluff, I know, is a big goal for someone. Oh, my God. You know I should totally do an interlude on bluff. Maybe I'll do that next time, but for this time I'm going to wish you the very best, most blessed of leather journeys until we speak. Well now, until you hear from me again.