The Versace AW16 Metallic Blue Shearling B-3 Jacket
Most of what comes through the workshop has had a hard life. Dry hides, seized zips, tired seams. The work is in bringing them back.
Every so often, something arrives that's rare for a different reason. This Versace AW16 metallic blue shearling jacket is one of them.
A Versace Runway Jacket Built on a Wartime Pattern
In autumn 2016, Donatella Versace sent her Milan menswear collection into space. The palette was silver and grey, with metallic leather and shearling throughout the show. Among the looks was a metallic blue jacket with a cream shearling collar, cuffs and hem.
This jacket comes from that collection.
The shape, though, is far older than the season. It's a B-3, the sheepskin flying jacket developed in the early 1930s for aircrew in open cockpits and unpressurised bombers. Every detail on the original had a job. The broad collar turned up against the slipstream. Straps at the neck and waist pulled it tighter as the temperature fell. The cuffs closed out the cold.
Versace kept all of it. The collar still belts high, the cuffs still buckle, and the waist still draws in. Only the shell changed.
What Makes This Versace Shearling Jacket Rare
Designer pieces aren't automatically rare. Plenty of runway clothing was made in numbers and turns up regularly.
This one is different. The model is understood to have been made in small numbers, many of them for celebrity clients. Nicolas Cage was photographed in the same jacket on his way to the Sundance Film Festival in 2018, and GQ featured the look.
The details back it up. The zip pulls are Medusa heads stamped VERSACE. Inside, the label reads "Made in Italy. Manufactured and Certified by Versace", and the care label carries the model number, authenticity code and 2016 production code.
When a piece like this comes in, those details matter as much as the leather. They're how you know what you're holding.
A Decade of Patina
The jacket is a decade old, but the metallic finish has already developed a patina across the body and sleeves.
A new example wouldn't have it. It's what wear has done to the surface, and it's now part of what makes this particular jacket unique.
There's always a temptation to tidy up something like that. We didn't.
The leather was supple, the seams sound and the shearling thick and clean. Every zip ran and every buckle worked. So it was lightly cleaned in the workshop, and that was all.
Restoration isn't always about how much you can do. Sometimes it's about recognising a jacket that has survived well, and not getting in its way.
Why We Look for Pieces Like This
Most of what we restore is military or workwear, made decades ago as working equipment. A Versace runway jacket barely a decade old might seem a long way from that.
It isn't, really. It's a wartime design that a fashion house took seriously enough to keep almost every working detail, made in small numbers, with its labels intact and a patina no new example can copy.
That's what makes a piece worth seeking out, whatever the label: what it is, where it came from, and how well it has survived.
This Versace has all three.
Looking for something with more years behind it? Browse our flying jackets, or read how we restored an original WWII RAF Irvin.