Sashiko Sweatshirt

Name: Sashiko Sweatshirt. Blue edition
Brand: Vollebak
SKU: SWH021NVYXSM
Price: 222 GBP
Availability: InStock

With 4.5km of reinforced stitching it takes 3 days to make.

£445 £222

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Model is 6ft 2 / 188cm with a 38 inch / 96cm chest, and wears size Large.

Sweatshirt is 100% organic cotton for softness
Embroidered with 4.5km of strong meta-aramid thread
Loopback construction

Reinforced with 4.5 kilometres of high-strength stitching, the Sashiko Sweatshirt pioneers a completely new approach to creating highly durable clothing, inspired by the ancient Japanese art of sashiko. The technique of sashiko, or ‘little stabs,’ is a highly resilient form of embroidery developed during the Japanese Edo period, where worn out garments were repaired using decorative hand stitches. Clothes would be mended again and again as they passed down the generations, getting stronger as they got older.

Rather than waiting until an item of clothing needs to be repaired, we’ve simply applied sashiko-style stitching in super-strong meta-aramid thread over the entire sweatshirt at the start of its life. By combining 100% organic cotton with 4.5 kilometres of high-strength stitching, we’ve created a sweatshirt that’s as soft and comfortable as it is tough and durable. Every Sashiko Sweatshirt takes a dedicated artisan three days to construct.

Technical Details

Material made in Italy: 100% organic cotton

Embroidered with 4.5km of sashiko thread

Sashiko thread composition: 100% meta-aramid

Engineered embroidery follows body contours

Machine wash 30°C

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Every sweatshirt is reinforced with 4.5 kilometres of high strength stitching

It’s a completely new approach to adding strength to materials inspired by the ancient Japanese art of sashiko.

The sashiko method helped pioneer sustainable clothing

The technique of sashiko, or ‘little stabs,’ is a highly resilient form of embroidery developed during the Japanese Edo period to repair torn and damaged clothes. Instead of today’s invisible mending, sashiko highlighted the rips, tears, frays and fringes of a piece of clothing, reinventing it with stitching in a contrasting thread. This simple ‘running stitch’ technique, used in repeating or interlocking patterns, not only gave clothes individual style, but also made them warmer, stronger and longer-lasting.

Repairing clothes made them tougher

The Japanese tradition of mending clothing with sashiko stitching was a brilliant example of how a sustainable approach to clothing could actually improve the clothes at the same time. Sashiko was used to keep farmers warm, fishermen dry, and make firemen’s coats thicker. So we wanted to explore whether this stitching technique, which creates very strong repairs, could be applied to a whole garment as a way of building in durability from the very start of its lifespan. Our Sashiko Sweatshirt is soft and extremely comfortable to wear, but with 4.5km of meta-aramid fibre stitching, it’s also tough and hard-wearing at the same time.

Sashiko needles were like magic wands

A long, sharp sashiko needle was sometimes referred to as a ‘magic wand.’ A tool that could not only save a piece of clothing, but make it more beautiful at the same time. Grey or white stitches against an indigo blue background were the classic sashiko combination, sometimes recalling blue mountains covered in snow, or the whitecaps on The Great Wave off Kanagawa.
Stitched with thousands of Vs

The traditional geometric patterns of sashiko included arrows, lightning and bamboo as popular motifs. Our stitching pattern is based on the Vollebak ‘V’. The stitching is denser towards the hem of the sweatshirt, and sparser at the elbows. This maximises movement and strengthens the areas where it’s needed most.

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4.5 kilometres of stitching that takes 3 days

High strength, flame-retardant aramid fibres are conventionally used to make clothing worn by military personnel, firefighters and industrial workers whose lives depend on protection against fires and electrical arcs. While we’ve used these materials to make some of our other ultra-tough clothing before, we’re pretty sure our Sashiko Sweatshirt is the first time that a single piece of clothing has been reinforced with 4.5 kilometres of meta-aramid stitching.

Knitted in Italy from 100% organic cotton

The Sashiko Sweatshirt is made from heavyweight 470g, 100% organic cotton, knitted in the mountains of northern Italy. The cotton-jersey is built using densely knitted yarn to create a fabric that’s more resistant to wear and pilling.
Each sweatshirt takes 3 days to make

The loopback construction we use to make the sweatshirt comes from using a special machine called a knitting loopwheel, where the knitting is done on a machine that revolves around large cylinders at a leisurely pace, knitting and stacking layers of organic cotton as it goes. These machines are only able to complete 24 revolutions a minute, which means it takes 1 hour to produce 1 metre of fabric. The meta-aramid thread is then stitched all over the garment, something that takes 3 days to complete for each sweatshirt.

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Ancient Edo society hated garbage

Garbage was almost non-existent in the Edo period. They didn’t just recycle and reuse. They understood that everything had a value and that living happily and within their means was a virtue. Repair and reuse businesses were everywhere. Enterprising samurai would turn busted bamboo umbrella frames into kindling, carefully unpicking oiled parasols and turning them into special wrapping paper. ‘Geta no haire,’ or wooden clog repairers, would travel door-to-door. And if your kettle or old pot sprung a leak, an ‘ikake,’ or metal repairer, was never far away.
It meant Japanese clothing wasn’t like western clothing

Clothing was the ultimate non-disposable product. Traditional kimonos were cut straight in equal proportions with no waste, so they were standardised goods – a significant point of difference with Western clothing. If Western clothes were disassembled they would be different sizes and could not be recycled the way kimonos were – effectively making them single-use items.

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