Okayama Denim Heavyweight Indigo Selvedge Sashiko Double Knee Painter Pants

OD002

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• Proprietary Heavyweight Asagi Indigo Selvedge Sashiko fabric
• 100% Cotton
• One wash
• Skein-dyed Indigo warp
• Double-knee painter pants silhouette
• Hammer loop featured on left leg
• Tool pocket featured on right leg
• Takeyari Canvas deadstock indigo block check sailcloth pocket bags
• Metal zipper opening
• Brass donut top button
• Reinforced brass rivets
• Vintage deadstock kimono fabric tab

The story of our latest OD original piece starts, as many of ours do, with a fabric hunt. We are always on the prowl for compositions that aren't readily available on the market, and we found this particular fabric tucked away in the stock room of a fabric dealer in Okayama. The 25m of vintage 1980s fabric we discovered had heavy sun damage and markings across the entirety of the piece. Not enough material to use for full garments, and too damaged to work with in its current state, but the composition itself was simply too beautiful to let go. The Asagi (light blue) base paired with the Kon (deep indigo) Sashiko threading produced a two-tone effect that we knew deserved a second life.

We brought the remnant to our friends at Nihon Menpu in Ibara, Okayama and asked them to reverse engineer it from scratch. The result is a faithful recreation of the original composition and color hues, woven for us exclusively and substantial enough in weight to hold up to the demands of a workwear silhouette.

The silhouette and details are drawn from a vintage pair of painter pants from the 1980s that we picked up along the way. We made an original pattern based on that pair, preserving the utilitarian bones that defined the American painter pant tradition, including the tool pocket, hammer loop, and the extra knee pad fabric layer that reinforces the high-wear zones on the legs. It is a genuinely functional cut that we felt deserved a fabric with enough character to do it justice. This is one of those combinations where the traditional Japanese fabric and the vintage American workwear silhouette bring out unexpected qualities in each other.

The pocket bags are lined with Takeyari Canvas Deadstock Indigo Block Check Sailcloth, a special fabric we have held onto from the now-defunct Takeyari factory. Since their inception in 1888, they have been supplying ships and boats with sail cloth, as well as artists for painting canvases, and now more recently for clothing and luggage. With the indigo-dyed nature of these pocket bags, they are guaranteed to age incredibly well with wear. Seeing this fabric live on inside an OD original piece feels especially meaningful. Brass hardware throughout, a metal zipper fly opening, and reinforced stitching construction round out the build.