The Art of Sashiko - There and Back Again

Freemans Sporting Club - Sashiko Shop Coat

"Do you know what this is?" I looked up, a little surprised to see an employee at the Journal Standard store in Osaka standing next to me where I was busy ogling a rack of jackets like some sort of pervert. In my hands was a deep indigo woven fabric with a rough, almost bumpy texture to it fashioned into the form of a type II denim jacket. "I do, but I don't know how to pronounce it," I sheepishly admitted. "It's sashiko ('SOSH-koh) fabric," he explained. But for me, sashiko had already become somewhat of a minor obsession, and something I was specifically after on my trip to Japan.

History

Tsugaru Sashiko

Sashiko Kimono - Metropolitan Museum of Art

The practice of sashiko brings workwear a uniquely Japanese point of view. Sashiko, translated into "small stabs (or piercings)," was initially borne of a need for practicality and used by the poor and working-class to mend, strengthen, and insulate old hemp and cotton fabric. A simple running stitch is employed, typically white thread on an indigo-dyed fabric, in a density of 5 to 10 stitches per inch. Over the years, the method was meticulously fine-tuned and different parts of Japan became known for characteristics styles, the most notable coming from the northern region of Tohoku. What was once purely functional evolved into a decorative skill and served as a display of the skill and craftsmanship of the maker, as well as the pride of the family to whom the stitcher belonged.

In the 18th century sashiko was also used as a means for producing firemen's clothing:

"Firemen coats are two or three layers of cotton, stitched with a vertical running stitch over 100% of the garment, generally with six or seven stitches per inch...The entire outfit was covered with sashiko stitching. When the firemen arrived at the scene of the fire they poured water over themselves...the extra fabric and stitching was absorbent and cooling. A total weight [at this time] of the clothing was said to be about 70 pounds." 
              -Cynthia Shaver,  Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Enlarged detail from emblem above

Edo period Tiger & Kato Kiyomasa Fireman's Coat

Although sashiko stitching is capable of producing a wide array of patterns, it is the simplest form of the finished fabric that was adopted for use in Kendo, Judo, and Aikido due to its durability and ability to absorb sweat. This plain loom-woven version, also known as "rice grain" fabric, is what modern Japanese designers have reached for over the last few decades to bring sashiko out of the old world and into the new.

Traditional kendo-gi

Sashiko Today

Freemans Sporting Club - Sashiko Jacket (mine)

FSC shop coat detail

"Where did you get that?" I was in San Francisco this time, and the assistant store manager at Unionmade was pointing to my jacket. I was wearing the sashiko blazer my wife bought me at Urban Research in Japan last year.

These days, sashiko isn't just relegated to the realm of firemen's uniforms and patchwork boro repairs. Given the once-strict vintage and reproduction type of consumption Japan once held (and still holds to a great degree) for classic Americana and western clothing, it's only fitting that the tide should flow in the other direction as well. You may have noticed sashiko garments coming out from some Japanese Americana brands and a few of the Americana companies with an Eastern lean to them (like the Hill-Side) each season. Japanese designers now work sashiko fabric into modern silhouettes and western-styled clothing. I own a few myself, the aforementioned FSC indigo patch pocket blazer and another similar piece with the same fabric made into a shop coat, but there are plenty more options out there across the spectrum from conservative to wild.

Die, Workwear wrote a piece last year on the brand Nine Lives, carried in the west by stores like Self Edge and Snake Oil Provisions, who produce many sashiko hybrid pieces including a sashiko duster and a unique yak leather sashiko rider that I had a chance to handle up at Self Edge.

Nine Lives

For something a little less rock and roll and a bit more comfortably wabi sabi, Blue Blue Japan always has a few indigo sashiko pieces up their sleeves (or pant legs) and is my personal choice for styling that lies mostly within the bounds of conventional style (Freemans Sporting Club isn't currently offering their own sashiko products right now). If you care to ride the rails out even further, Kapital's boro line reimagines the repaired, bedraggled soul of sashiko/boro perhaps better than anyone. The Century Denim in particular brings sashiko stitching together with denim in such an organic fashion it feels like they were made for one another.

So there it is. A little bit of the past and present of sashiko, a centuries-old tradition slowly making its way from the East to the West. It can't come fast enough.

Kapital Hobo Jacket

Kapital Century Denim

The Hill-Side Cap and Blazer

Nine Lives (from Snake Oil Provisions)

Blue Blue Japan

Blue Blue Japan Hunting Jacket

Nine Lives Duster (detail below)

Nine Lives Rider

3 Sixteen Work Jacket

Freemans Sporting Club - Shop Coat (pictured on me above)