Diesel Vintage Burnished Leather Racer Jacket, Stereo Aces Patches

Diesel made its name by refusing to make anything look new. This jacket shows it. It’s a midweight leather racer from the brand’s late-1990s and early-2000s heyday, cut slim and close, with the leather hand-burnished so the dark brown wears through to tan along every seam, edge and raised panel. It looks like it’s already done twenty years on a motorcycle, which was exactly the idea.

Renzo Rosso founded Diesel in 1978 in Molvena, a small town in northern Italy, after starting out sewing jeans on his mother’s machine. By the 1990s it had become one of the most talked-about brands in the world, famous for its “Guides for Successful Living” campaigns and for treating denim and leather until they looked lived-in. Diesel’s leather from this period borrowed openly from old racing and motorcycle gear, and this jacket wears those influences on its sleeve, literally.

There are three embroidered patches, each hand-whipped onto the leather with contrasting thread. On the left sleeve is a black felt shield reading “Diesel Stereo Aces”, finished with a lightning bolt and a hexagonal stud. On the right is a cream patch with the Diesel name in chain-stitched script, edged in turquoise. On the chest is a yellow roundel with a stitched racing number. They’re styled like the club and sponsor badges riders sewed onto their jackets in the 1950s and 60s.

The construction is full of detail. Pointed yokes front and back are picked out with cream piping and scattered with eyelets and Diesel-branded rivets. Two angled zip pockets sit across the chest, their welts left with raw, deliberately frayed edges. Below them, two large curved panels hold vertical zip pockets framed with eyelets. The forearms zip open, and the main zip and every pocket closes on a heavy metal zip with Diesel’s D logo cut into the pull, each finished with a leather tag.

The leather is midweight and soft, with a heavy burnish that gives it real depth: near-black in the hollows, worn back to caramel on the high points. Inside, it’s lined in a warm, lightly quilted silver-grey twill, making it a jacket you can wear well into the colder months.

The original Diesel label is still sewn in at the collar, marked size XXL, 100% leather and made in China, along with US and Canadian registration numbers (RN 93243, CA 25594). Those numbers show it was labelled for sale in North America, which helps explain why it’s so seldom seen on the UK market. Patched Diesel leather from this era turns up rarely here, and this design, with its full set of original patches, isn’t one you see often.

Condition & Restoration

Very good condition. The leather has been specialist cleaned and conditioned in-house, with the original burnished finish fully preserved.

The leather is soft and supple, with the deliberate distressing and burnishing Diesel applied when the jacket was made. The patches are complete and secure. All the zips work smoothly. The lining is complete and in good order.

Key Identifying Features

• Diesel, late 1990s to early 2000s
• Midweight burnished brown leather
• Three original embroidered patches, including “Diesel Stereo Aces”
• Pointed front and rear yokes with cream piping
• Eyelets and Diesel-branded rivets
• Two angled chest zip pockets with raw-edge welts
• Two vertical zip pockets set in curved panels
• Zipped forearms
• Heavy metal zips with Diesel D-logo pulls and leather tags
• Warm, lightly quilted silver-grey twill lining
• Original Diesel label, marked XXL, made in China
• US and Canadian registration numbers (RN 93243, CA 25594)

Garment Measurements, Laid Flat

• Chest, armpit to armpit: 21.5" / 54.5 cm
• Shoulders, seam to seam: 17" / 43 cm
• Sleeve, shoulder seam to cuff: 23" / 58.5 cm
• Underarm seam to cuff: 19.5" / 49.5 cm
• Back length, base of collar to hem: 23.5" / 59.5 cm

Best suited to: 38" chest, regular / Size Small

Fit: The label reads XXL, but this jacket was made in China and follows the smaller Asian sizing used there, so it fits like a UK Small, around a 38" chest. Combined with Diesel’s slim, close-fitting racer cut, it comes up much smaller than the label suggests. Please go by the measurements above rather than the label, and compare them with a jacket you already own.