While many people like to put patches on their riding jackets, some enjoy covering their vests with patches. The reason why some people don't is because they ride in areas where it can get pretty cold, so their vest is often covered by a heavy jacket. However, if you are thinking about adding some patches to your vest, it's pretty easy to do so since it's basically the same as adding patches to a jacket.
You do want to make sure your vest can hold up to adding patches to it. A vest off the rack from a store may not be since vests are often considered formalwear and, as such, are made out of material that is more designed to look great instead of being really durable. The weight of some patches can cause some issues with these types of vests, but these aren't exactly the vests you'd want to put patches on, anyway.
Many riding vests are made out of leather. This is because leather is a very durable material and will actually help protect you in the event of a crash. However, because of this, adding patches to your vest is going to be a bit more difficult. You can't use the iron-on adhesive found on the back of most vests because heat will ruin leather. This means you're going to have to sew your patches on. That takes a little more time, of course. On the other hand, it does mean you can later carefully snip the thread and reuse your patches on another vest.
You can use almost any patch on a vest, even rocker patches made to go on the shoulders of a jacket, just put the rocker on the front section of your vest where you might put a name tag.
