No One Can Believe How Cheap My Vegan-Leather Jacket Is

Today’s ever-changing climate makes each morning a personal odyssey in selecting outerwear. Will it be a balmy 52 degrees, or a civilization-crushing 17 degrees with a side of polar vortex? And, of course, there’s the added temperature instability of the workplace, where we’re swaddled in scarves at one meeting and sweating through our shirts at the next. A leather jacket is not only multi-seasonal, it’s also an ideal dress-up/dress-down garment. I’d been on the hunt for one such piece under $200 (okay, $300) for a while, but was finding only cheapo-looking options or overhardwared ones in which I resembled a Hells Angel.

A few days after abandoning my hunt, the perfect leather jacket serendipitously strolled by me in the office, on a reliably hip co-worker. “Where is that from?” I asked, assuming the answer would be far outside my feeble price range. “It’s from Nasty Gal,” she replied with a shrug, “and it’s like $100-plus, it’s windproof and fits layers underneath.” Nary ten minutes later, I received a confirmation that the jacket would be mine, and a few days hence, the Atomic Vegan jacket was jauntily slung over my shoulders.

It’s got hardware without the threat of maiming someone on the subway, and though it’s made of “vegan leather” (read: pleather), it doesn’t make that awful creaking noise when you move. It’s fitted and warm, and blocks the wind very well. Equally fetching over a sweater as over a dress, it’ll be my go-to for late spring, early summer, and fall, and maybe even one of those unseasonably warm winter days we keep having.