Twenty Hours of Thread
Twenty Hours of Thread
Four days of chain stitching. Eight months of production. One jacket at a time.
The varsity jacket is one of the oldest pieces of American clothing still in daily use, and almost nobody makes one properly any more. This is our answer to that.
Where the Shape Came From
In 1865 the Harvard baseball team put an Old English H on a grey flannel shirt. For twenty five years after that, the captain handed those lettered jerseys to the players who had played in the games that counted, and the ones who had not played gave theirs back at the end of the season.
That is where the varsity letter comes from, and eventually the jacket that carries it. It was never a fashion item to begin with. It was proof that you had been there.
The Stitching
Every patch on this jacket is chain stitched by an artisan in Japan who works under the name HANDLER, one of the best in the world at this craft, with twenty five years at it.
The chain stitching takes four days. The back patch takes four hours by itself. The ship carrying USA and Japan takes another four hours on its own. Over twenty hours of needle and thread go into one jacket.
There is a full post on the journal about how chain stitching is done and why no machine has replaced it.
The Materials
The sleeves are 1.6mm white cowhide, pale as the underside of a storm.
The body is melton at 400 grams per square meter, ninety percent wool and ten percent nylon. Melton is wool that has been fulled and then shorn flat, so the surface closes up and the cloth stops behaving like a knit and starts behaving like armor. It blocks wind and it holds a shape.
The lining is quilting made in Japan.
The jacket is produced one hundred percent in Japan. The cloth, the leather, the hardware, the stitching, all of it, end to end.
Eight Months
Production runs about eight months from start to finish. That number is not a delay. It is what four days of chain stitching per jacket looks like when you add up a run of them.
Only a limited number are made, and each is made to order in our stock sizing.
Tokyo, October 2
The jacket will be on display at our first pop up in Japan, in Ebisu, Tokyo, on October 2. It is the first time anybody can stand in front of it and look at the stitching in person.
The next preorder opens that same day, October 2.
Ten years of Black Bear Brand went into the patches on this thing. Samurai ghosts, ink stained hands, the hum of old craft. Every patch is a moment from somewhere.
A Way Of Life.
Shop the Story
the ART Edition Chain Stitched Varsity Jacket
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Made in Seattle, Made in Japan