From Rags to Riches - Japanese Sakiori Fabric, Then and Now

Freemans Sporting Club - Sakiori Studio Coat

One of the most exciting aspects of Japanese Americana is the mixing of Eastern and Western aesthetics into something altogether fresh and unique - a little bit of both worlds into one. In addition to interesting silhouettes and quirky designs (such as Japanese "pocket apocalypse"), Japan has also contributed traditional Eastern textiles to modern Western clothing. The most well-known of those would be boro patchwork and sashiko stitching, but lately another old fabric has been creeping its way out of the history pages and into the menswear market - sakiori.

Picture from KUON

Picture from Kiriko

The word "sakiori" comes from the Japanese roots "saku," meaning "to tear or rip," and "oru," or "to weave." Similar to boro and sashiko techniques, sakiori was born out of necessity rather than decoration. The technique is grounded in the Japanese idea of "mottainai," which loosely translates into the regret of waste and the practice of reusing and recycling. During the Edo period (1600-1800s) in the northern region of Japan, cotton made its way into the country but was a luxury, expensive and hard to come for lower classes. Commoners thus found a way to recycle old clothes into "new" fabric for daily use - sakiori. In this process, small strips of recycled rags and bits of cloth were used as the weft thread and woven in with a cotton warp. The resulting textile was often beautifully colored, incredibly textured, and perfectly imperfect, used to create utilitarian garments and blankets. You could say sakiori is one of the bedrocks of original Japanese workwear.  However, the weave is not an entirely Japanese concept. India, for one, has a history of Chindi rugs which are also made from leftover and reclaimed remnants. In fact, I own a woven rug pictured in this Kapital Ring Coat post that was constructed similarly with strips of leather (you can see it a little in the fit pics below as well).

Sasquatchfabrix Military Sakiori Haori

But as boro and sashiko have found their ways into western markets in recent years, sakiori still flies relatively under the radar. In large part, that may be due to a combination of its traditionally handmade nature and level of texture, which can leave quite a strong visual impact. Don't get me wrong, boro and sashiko both can be quite loud as well, but they have both been eased into the collective style consciousness and at times are barely noticeable at all. And though I tend to dress a bit left-of-center myself, when lusting after some beautiful sakiori-made garments I often catch myself asking "can I really fit that into my wardrobe?" and many times the answer is probably not. If we consider the 1990s into the 2000s and into this decade, however, there's been a slow, but steady, move towards men being freer to explore style in a way that would have been considered "gay" or "metro" just a short time ago, so who's to say what we'll consider "too much" tomorrow. Looking at designers who make both men's and women's lines is almost universally more interesting on the female side of the equation, but the gap has been closing (and in some cases not even divided at all anymore).

At the most true-to-process (and arguably most beautiful) end of the sakiori spectrum, Japanese-centric brands like KUON (a relatively new, higher end streetwear-leaning Japanese label), OrSlow, and Kiriko have each produced some nice pieces. Monitaly's Jute Tapestry Coat is built using similar construction, and even someone at RRL slipped in an indigo sakiori bag back in 2017. If those are a little too out there, consider products made more in-the-spirit-of sakiori than the real deal. A few years ago, Canadian denim specialists Naked & Famous produced a special edition jean used fabric woven from three different yarns to create a more subtle sakiori-type effect. And earlier this year I wrote a post about rethinking the approach to purchasing clothes, lamenting that I had waited too long on a studio coat made with a similar sakiori-style 12 oz denim by Freemans Sporting Club, one of my absolute favorite brands when it comes to Western clothing with an Eastern slant. FSC typically sells heritage-style wear, but yearly has produced some of the best twists on classics like shop coats, patch pocket blazers in indigo sashiko and Pendleton Woolen Mills collabs, likely as a result of the company's shared roots in Tokyo.

Freemans Sporting Club - Studio Coat

Let's talk about this coat for a moment. They say that when you love something, you should let it go. If it comes back to you, it's yours forever. If it doesn't, it was never meant to be.

What a stupid proverb. I have to say, though, when something does come back to you after you thought it was long gone, it can feel amazing. I gave up on the FSC Studio Coat when it went out of stock on FSC's site during a sale ~$300-400 earlier this year and since then I couldn't find it anywhere on the Japanese market, or in the world for that matter. So when I saw it pop up on sale at a local Philly shop named Lapstone and Hammer of all places at >75% off for a total price of $125, it was fate - as if an angel had descended from the heavens and laid it right on my shoulders. And to date, it's one of my favorite pieces of outerwear. It's everything that's great about East meets West clothing, and every time I put it on, it gives me such a sexual regular thrill.

Thrilled on the inside

These days, we see a lot of tech fabrics in the market, and with good reason. Many of them possess qualities that are unique and advantageous in certain aspects. But I personally like the old things for their sense of soul and romance. We've been talking mainly about Japanese sakiori here, but if you've been paying attention to the tea leaves you may have heard whispers of more traditional and interesting textiles making their way into menswear in the future - Hmong textiles arts, tapestry fabrics, African mudcloth, etc. I say the more the better.