Based in the Pennines of Northern England, Revive & Restore Vintage is shaped by a landscape where time, weather and work leave their mark. Up here, among open moorland and old mill towns, you learn to respect what has lasted, repair what still has life in it, and look after things that were made properly.
What began as a personal obsession has become a lifelong craft, carrying history forward one jacket at a time. Over the years, these jackets have gone to collectors, stylists, and major film and television productions, including Pinewood Studios and the BBC series SAS: Rogue Heroes.
Breathing New Life Into History
It started with a jacket.
It was a battered 1940s motorcycle jacket, scarred and forgotten, which I found at a car boot over a decade ago. The leather was cracked and the lining torn, yet something about it stopped me: the weight of the hide, the smell, the years still clinging to it. It wasn’t just clothing. It was a story that had survived. I’ve always loved that about old clothes, the stories and the nostalgia they carry, and leather most of all, because it keeps a record of every year it’s been worn.
At the time, I was running my own specialist dry cleaners. I’d learned my trade alongside some of the UK’s best dry cleaning, leather cleaning, fur cleaning and leather restoration specialists, handling leather, sheepskin, fur and fine cloth of every kind. I was restoring old flying jackets and other pieces for antiques dealers and collectors, taking on the complex work other cleaners would pass on to me.
So I knew how to bring that jacket back, and once I had, I couldn’t stop.
From then on I ran two things side by side: the dry cleaners, and a growing trade in restored vintage leather jackets. Eventually the jackets took over. The business grew to the point where I couldn’t keep up with both, so I gave up the dry cleaning and went all in on what I cared about most: finding, restoring and offering vintage leather jackets on my own terms.
I’m still learning. Over the years I’ve developed cleaning methods of my own, and I stay in regular touch with friends in the trade, keeping up with new techniques as the craft moves on.
The Process
Each jacket is chosen for its construction, its leather and its character, then restored to last.
Every piece is professionally cleaned in the workshop, removing decades of dirt and odour and leaving it hygienically clean and sanitised. Where time has left its mark, it gets the professional repair and restoration work it needs: seams restitched and reinforced, splits and losses filled, grain restored, invisible repairs made, broken zips replaced, worn-out linings renewed, and colour work only where it’s needed. Then the leather is conditioned with blends I make here in the workshop until it’s supple again.
There’s no mass production and there are no shortcuts. Nor is there any attempt to make a jacket look new. The creases, the patina and the honest wear stay, because they’re the jacket’s history. What leaves the workshop is sound, supple and ready to be worn for years to come.
— Leigh, Founder & Restorer
