The happy coincidence this week sees us with a trio of Japanese/American brands to chat on about. Two of them are new, well not properly new – one of them has been around for more than 50 years – but they’re new to us. There’s a distinct Native American feel in stuff at the moment, never more so than this week. We’re calling it masculine meets mescaline. We’ve got a couple of new bits from Filson and Ralph Lauren that were unfortunate not to make the cut this week. If you’re lucky, you might win a £200 voucher on our Facebook competition to pay for some of these goodies. Otherwise, get raiding the piggy bank. You won’t regret it.
The first parka to carry the name “60/40” was originated by Bob Swanson and George Marks of Californian brand Sierra Designs in 1968. There’s your trivia quota met for this week. Plenty of other brands lay claim to inventing the 4 pocket parka but nobody called it a 60/40 before Sierra Designs did. Japanese outdoor enthusiasts have resurrected the brand and we’re the sole UK stockist. We’ve seen vintage versions of these and the modern take is totally faithful.
A California double whammy is completed by Sunny Sports. Well, we say California but typically Sunny Sports is actually based in Japan. Taking inspiration from West Coast American culture they do nice stuff infused with that Japanese propensity to get things absolutely spot on. There’s a mixture of denim and chambray plus one of the maddest pieces of the season, the Native Fleece vest. It’s called the Yucatan after the Mexican province, which sounds a bit like….
See that? Seamless. Yucatan… Yuketen. Another marriage between Japan and America, this weeks delivery was all about quality, not quantity with just two ace items. The 5 inch dress hunt boots are not easy to do justice with using mere words. Certainly if you wanted to go the whole hog with the Native American thing, these would round off your ‘Boy Named Sioux’ look perfectly, especially if you include the Deer Leather Tote bag (for recently collected scalps).