This western leather vest was entirely built with leather braiding of top quality, full grain, moccasin cowhide - no thread, or any other material, was used on it. All of the seams, edges, back yoke, and pockets were completely constructed with braided leather. The 1/4" wide laces used on it were cut from the same leather that the vest parts were cut from.
Over the years, (since 1972) I've custom built hundreds of these vests. On my leather vests home page there are 55+ vests with many pictures of their many features. Folks look them over to decide which featurss are for them, or get ideas to design their own. Each vest that I build ends up being a one of a kind. In regards to colors: I have several brown tones or black to select from.