The Douglas Crossbody is a perfect example. I'd been seeing a tiresome amount of the Lululemon slingbags and thought it'd be nice too see another shape out in the world. A buddy of mine was in the market for a different crossbody bag, so I got to work.
Took a few tries but I'm pretty happy with the end result. A good size, with ample room for a wallet, phone and a few other little trinkets. Now I want to redesign my camera sling.
I put together a final version and gave it to my buddy, his name is Brandon Douglas, but we all just call him Douglas...
]]>A local bag brand called Nocturnal Workshop took me in as their intern and I dove in head first, learning as much as I could during the day, before starting my bartending shifts at night.
I had a mini duffle bag I used as my lunch bag during my internship. It was an old bag I got with a BAPE mag during my high-school years. It's crazy to think how many people in the design world have had some sort of interaction with BAPE, this is where it happened for me. To do this day, even though Nigo has long moved on, it's amazing how strong the brand remains.
Because the bag was an add-on to their lookbook magazine, it wasn't as intricately constructed as their main-line stuff. For someone that's just learning how to sew however, it was the perfect starting point. I took it apart, made a pattern from the pieces, and the rest is history.
“Meshi” in Japanese means rice. That's the literal translation, but my time as a high-schooler in Japan had me using the term as a slang for food or lunch. Or dinner or any meal for that matter, I eat a lot every time I'm there...
]]>It’s always nice to jump from SWB to SEI. I’ve learned that making leather jackets is one of my favourite things to do and this one was no exception. Building this from scratch was such an enjoyable process, mainly because I’d never done a 3/4 sleeve before. Turns out it’s common in the motorcycle world, but paired with this camo printed cowhide, it’s truly one of a kind.
The details on the this jacket are crazy, yet visually it still remains pretty minimal. The chest pockets are apparent, but little things like the fleece-back collar, zipper guard quick snaps and eyewear facing slot go a long way. I can’t wait to see this thing broken in and on a custom Harley.
Mack is the name of the client/homie, Mackenzie. I love it when friends wear things I make…
]]>The flatter and wider brother to the Ame Hat, this is the hat that I wear. Taken from an old, packable Uniform Experiment hat I wore for years, I just wanted a nicer version. The vertical doob loop is a nice touch for the regular smoker, or someone that just likes to put things like feathers or other accessories on their hat.
My favourite part about this hat is in the pattern. When you cut the brim out, the circle you cut out from the centre becomes the panel on the top of the hat. No waste is the best waste.
“Tsuri” in Japanese means fishing, the activity that inspired the hat. Couple tokes and a cast, sounds peaceful right?
]]>Bucket hats are an extremely underrated accessory. Speaking from a sewing perspective, they’re such a great thing to learn on and look good on virtually anybody.
What’s so cool about this material is that it’s an impregnated wax cotton canvas, which means that the wax was applied before the weaving of the material, so it just feels like regular cotton canvas but still retains the water resistant nature of the wax stuff.
The doob loop was inspired by the ACF hats, where some of them have a little holster for your cigarette. Here in BC we’re known for our weed, so a great little detail for enthusiasts and people that just like to accessorize their hats.
“Ame” in Japanese means rain, something our city is known so well for as we transition to the Fall. Also know as typical elevator subject matter…
]]>My journey in design started with bags, so I’m pretty surprised it took this long to drop a bag style. That being the case, this bag was one of the first designs I did and it just sat on my rolling rack of patterns for years. I moved into a new studio with some homies that have a bag brand called HMPL (among a few other projects) and the spark for accessories was reignited once we started working together.
Initially called the “Combat Duffle,” the one I made for myself was constructed fully with tech fabrics, and served as my work/gym bag. The HMPL boys also have a company called Local MFG and have helped every brand in the city in some sort of production capacity. They had a bunch of wax cotton canvas lying around from a past contract and were kind enough to let me play with it. The wax cotton paired with ballistic nylon was aligned perfectly with SWB’s values of heritage inspiration made in today’s world.
“Maru” in Japanese means circle. I’m pretty stoked to have been able to bring some colour to the line…
]]>Big cozy tee baby! That’s all this is.
I loved the hemp and organic cotton jersey I found for the Kihon tee, so decided to roll with it for this style too. Your standard oversized crewneck, with the straight front hem and curved back hem found on most SWB knits.
“Kasane” in Japanese means to stack, a reference to the stacked seams on the sleeve. Both a regular shoulder seam and a drop. Marketing 101 taught me differentiate, differentiate, differentiate…
]]>Since the inception of SEI started with a women’s moto, it was on my mind to make a men’s version as well. Though the first men’s moto I made was the Gocho Jacket, the idea I had initially was with a camo leather. Walking through Lonsdale Leather one day on a mission for a separate project, I saw the camo hide hanging out on display and instantly thought how dope that would look as a moto jacket.
Luckily most of the pattern work was done with the Gocho, but I wanted to differentiate this jacket a little bit. I decided to pare down the directional arrow on the back to just one, less is more after all. At the time, there was a lot of chatter of Kyle Lowry leaving the Raptors (though now at the time of this writing he’s playing for Miami) and it got me hyped when he voiced that he was planning to stay. This helped me solidify my decision for the design on the back.
“Kita” in Japanese means North, ‘cause it’s Over Everything…
]]>T-shirts for me have been the hardest thing to design. I don’t know why, I’m just never satisfied with the result. I always put it to the side and find it daunting to revisit, so I never do.
What I realized one day, for me anyway, a tee is like a bag. You can’t have a bag that does everything, you need different bags to do different, specific things really well. Same thing goes for a t-shirt. You need a good basic tee and a cozy tee as a starting point.
This is the nice tee. A raglan style that’s flattering on the frame, and has a cross-neck collar that creates a natural V. I’ve always liked a little length on the sleeves and body so added that in too.
“Kihon” in Japanese is short for “Kihonteki,” which means fundamental. My approach to a basic tee if you will…
]]>People that know me know that I’m a massive Pharrell fan. I bought a baseball shirt from BBC and kept it for years, eventually wanting to make my own version.
Roughly around the same time, I drew up one of my first flats (below) that was a simple black and white mockup of a more angular style baseball shirt. I made a pattern from my old shirt, straightened/angled some lines and made arguably the simplest, yet most unique SWB style yet. It has Japanesey vibes, priesty vibes, uniform vibes, all while be so damn simple.
“Yakyu” in Japanese means baseball. I launched this style in just black and white but I’m interested to see what colour blocked versions of this would look like…
]]>Not much to say in this post because most of the work happened with the Frankenstein Weekender.
I found the camo leather at a local supplier and knew it’d be perfect for a bag. The only real difference with this one is that I made the piping to go on the outer side seams.
As mentioned in the Frankenstein post, “Roku” is the Japanese word for six. What was once the Four Towers Bag (if you look at the front, back, right and left, they all tower in at the top) now becomes Six because of the interior mesh pouches.
I’m a huge fan of removable things, modular is the way to go…
]]>The collar was the first thing I dialed in before moving onto the other details of the vest. Making it removable by simply adding a zipper was fairly straightforward.
I added two angled chest pockets next, as I found them useful on my old vest. Then decided to keep going with the angular lines using stitching, on the back panel to hold down the insulation. One thing that drives me crazy is when stitching lines don’t match up so I made sure that though the back lines are angled, they flow perfectly into the side seams. The lines on the side line up perfectly with the two seam pockets and flow to the front of the vest. The combination of straight and angular lines give this ordinarily simple layering piece, a mean, clean and bold look.
Someone send me pictures of what this looks like stacked with a hoodie…
]]>As I transition to making more and more of my own clothing, the clothes I do buy get fewer and far between (except for sneakers of course). One of the last articles of clothing I did buy (and absolutely loved), was a down Burton vest (thanks Mirae). Meant normally to be a snowboarding layer, I wore this thing everyday and with everything. Unfortunately as the season started to shift, I left it behind on a barstool one night.
When I decided to replace the vest with my own, the first thing I wanted to do was be able to make the collar removable. I layered my previous vest with everything and found the collar to get in the way sometimes. Though versatile and wearable in a number of different ways, the final vest has 3 foundational ways to rock it: collar up, collar down or collar off.
“Sanpi” in Japanese is the slang term for threesome. I know, real mature…
]]>The plaid shirt is a staple in any guy’s closet so it made sense for me to come up with a SWB version. My fabric supplier for the bomber jackets had an awesome wool blend that I wanted to play with, so first step was to get my hands on some.
I spent hours scrolling through different plaid shirts online and had trouble figuring out what pocket placement I liked most. The tricky thing with any pattern is lining things up in a way that the garment looks cohesive. I liked some of the shirts that had the chest pocket pattern on an angle, but realized that would'n’t look as good for any pattern that was thinner and more intricate. I wanted something I could plug and play with any material. Lining the lines up exactly was another option, but I thought to myself that’d be so wasteful on a marker.
The folded floating pocket was still on my mind from the Meganeh Shirt, and the more I thought about it, the more I didn’t want to see any pocket at all. I played with some stitching lines and fold options and was able to scale the size of the pocket up to something that could hold more than just eyewear. The best part is, you only notice a little break in the pattern.
“Tatamu” in Japanese means to fold. I’m really diving into the origami theme here…
]]>I’m really happy with the lane I’ve found with the overshirt idea; it’s such an easy piece with endless ways to style it. I still have a small roll of the Candiani denim that I used for the Akiko Jeans, so it was an easy decision to make a version with that.
Keeping the theme of showing off the selvedge line, I wanted to make a style that was even more minimal so there’d be a bigger surface area for wear to show up over time. The first overshirt proto I made from a women’s jegging material (I still have it and wear it all the time), that had hidden seam pockets that were held up by the bottom snap on the front of the shirt and sewn into the stitching line of the hem. A few small adjustments to the pattern and I made myself my new daily driver.
Here’s to rocking the Canadian Tuxedo the right way…
]]>A women’s sling bag came out of nowhere. I was doing some sampling for a men’s sling bag project and was given some direction to make a smaller one. The floating front pocket was something I kept from the men’s idea, where I like the idea of being able to put something like a shirt through the sides and have it hanging so you have more room in the bag.
As the smaller version of the bag started to materialize, I noticed that the detail in the front made it look sort of like something from my childhood. An onigiri is a popular Japanese snack food, and something that was referenced frequently in the Japanese cartoons I watched growing up. I decided to double down on this shape and did some sampling to find a nice balance between the typical triangular shape of this delicious rice ball, and a functional bag shape. I’ve found that depending on the type of leather I use, it leans more in one direction or the other.
I keep talking about how this is a women’s offering, but I might just make one for myself…
]]>I’m super hyped to revive this style, because the first thing I ever sewed together myself was a mini duffle. This is the finalized version, the initial idea came as something much simpler.
Back in my interning days at what was once Nocturnal Workshop, now Techwear Intern, I used to bring a little lunch bag to the studio everyday. The bag was a little BAPE duffle that I got in a magazine as a kid. Because it was a bonus to the magazine, it was a pretty simple construction, perfect for a new sewer like me. I picked apart the bag, made a pattern from the dimensions and sewed together my own version.
Fast forward a few years and several design updates (special mention Tyler) and this is the result with dimensions still the same, but a little better designed with modular details. Keeping in line with the upcycled leather theme with removable pouches, this is the little brother to the Frankenstein Weekender.
I made a version that has a foam panel in between the leather and lining and it serves as my camera bag. Big fan…
]]>I’d already made a bunch of custom moto jackets for women. This was a perfect opportunity I thought, to work on a men’s iteration. Another driver for this experiment was the hardware. I’ve used my fair share of Riri zippers at this point but really wanted to try YKK’s high end line called Excella. Seeing as I draw a lot of inspiration from my Japanese side, it just made sense to make this transition. I also knew what lining I would use right away, I had a blue kimono in my stash that my mum brought back from my grandparents’ place.
With everything ready to go, I cut everything out just to get to the back panel, where I unfortunately ran out of leather. Panic and defeat set in as I messaged the Intern guys to see if they had anymore. No luck. As a last, desperate effort I message Ecco Leather on Instagram not expecting any sort of reply. Not only did they get back to me, they shipped me what I needed and then some!
I’m a huge proponent of looking at things from an optimistic angle, taking note of all the small wins along the way. A massive company like Ecco Leather supporting little guys like me, I see as a huge win. Thank you Anna, truly…
]]>I needed somewhere to shoot the Spring ‘20 styles for SWB and my mind went to the rooftop of the Techwear Intern office. As always, they were super supportive and gave me everything I needed to shoot both the editorial and product shots. Once the shoot was done, I took a peek at what they were working on and they showed me some leather from one of the suppliers they were working with.
They showed me everything they had from Ecco Leather, the highlight of which was a grey, perforated cowhide. The way it was perforated made it move and have properties like mesh, WHOA. I couldn’t stop gushing over the hide, so the Intern guys being the rad dudes that they are, just rolled it up and told me to go make something with it. Thanks guys!
“Gocho” in Japanese means Corporal; the badge of which inspired the design on the back. Why Corporal and not General? We all have to start somewhere…
]]>The original name for this bag was the Four Towers Bag - a play on my love for Lord of the Rings. If you look at each outer face on the bag (front, back, left, right) you can see that all of the panels tower in at the top. I decided to keep this theme when going in to do the update.
Updating the pattern wasn’t too complicated. I wanted to extend the main compartment zipper past the top as I found with other bags I had, it was nice having the extra room at the opening. I curved the bottom corners of the front/back panel and that was pretty well it for pattern updates.
The interior mesh pockets came with sewing up a prototype. I didn’t have any rivets to secure the webbing handles so decided to use snaps instead. That got me thinking, since I already had two snaps at the top of each side, might as well add in a couple more at the bottom then I could have something snap to them from the inside. I jumped back into the pattern and made a couple of pieces for the inside and the mesh pouches were born.
What was once four towers, became six with the two added interior pouches. This is the Frankenstein Duffle because of the leather scraps but as I write this post out, I’ve decided any regular version will be called the Roku Tower Duffle Bag.
“Roku” in Japanese means six, also the name of an awesome gin. Maybe one day we could do a collab or something…
]]>I was super fortunate during the pandemic to find myself doing a bunch of leatherwork, one of which was a duffle bag project for a homie. One of the first things I ever made for myself was a weekender bag. My friend would always comment on it anytime we did a board trip or weekend getaway together, so as time went on he would buy clothes and suggest ideas for things I could make for him.
Side note: I just want to say how grateful I am for my circle of friends and support system around me. The biggest thing I’ve taken from this entrepreneurship journey, is yes things are busy, endless and super hectic but it’s important to make time when you can to invest in the relationships around you. I’d be lost if it wasn’t for my friends. For anyone following a similar path, trust me, it’s worth the sacrifice of work to spend time with the people that know you the most.
The conversation with my homie eventually circled back to making him a bag, which was great because I’d been wanting to update my weekender for a while. Seeing as it was one of my first designs, the pattern could use some serious work…
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]]>It’s no secret that the masters of style have got colour-blocking down to a science. I on other hand, am terrible at it. I’m much more in the realm of a uniform type of guy. My day-to-day fit generally consists of a muted top and bottom, finished with a more flamboyant set of sneakers.
Inspired by the countless delivery boys working today, the shirt I had already so the shorts were pretty straightforward to make. I wanted to get a little more creative than just chopping the leg of the Kekon Pants, so I found a way to press and top stitch the outer leg seam so it looks like a little selvedge cutout. I like the line it creates with the hem of the shirt, staying consistent with my “angular vision.”
I’ve washed the shorts a couple of times, the shirt I have yet to…
]]>It was a no brainer to sample these shirts. They never ended up going into production, but I decided to shoot them anyway just to have as reference and to hopefully drop them in the future.
Same deal as the Selvedge Meganeh Overshirt, I just flippped and pressed the centre-front seam outward to show off the selvedge line. I found some nice chambray options, all of which are a perfect Spring/Summer weight.
Subtle flex is the best flex...
]]>I’m super stoked to have finally found some comfortable hemp options. This one is a canvas material that’s about a half and half blend with cotton.
The cut for these was pretty straightforward, as in I literally just took the pant pattern and chopped it right above the knee. I gave all the pieces to my digitizer and she made some adjustments to the fit. Usually it takes a couple of prototypes to finalize the details but I sewed together the first iteration and they were perfect. Lucky me.
The name gets a little weird here. I did a year of high school in Japan and during that time, my friends were so intrigued by the fact that I smoked weed in Canada. I swear I remember them calling it “Taima” or タイマ but none of my Japanese friends since then have any idea what I’m talking about. Maybe it was specific to the Nagasaki dialect, or maybe I was just totally lost in translation. Regardless, I think it rolls off the tongue nicely…
]]>My first go at khakis. With reference to Japanese influence, a lot of the imagery I saw coming out of Japan was bottoms getting roomier as opposed to the still, very skinny fits seen in the States. I for one, look terrible in skinny anything so I wanted to go the other direction with these.
I gave a little bit more room in the leg but still had them taper in a bit, consistent with a chino, and brought up the rise so you don’t really need to wear a belt. The fabric weight is in line with a normal twill khaki, but selvedge of course.
“Kekon” translates to wedding in Japanese. This is the accomplice to the shirt we wore as groomsmen to my homie’s wedding…
]]>Initially, I wanted to use the floating breast pocket on this material as well but found it looked a little messy with the stripes. I’ll have to find my own way to incorporate a more subdued pocket for patterned fabrics. This was an easy choice to be the short-sleeve version of the Kakoi Shirt.
I’ve been wanting to use hemp for a while, as it’s an undeniably more sustainable fabric option, and found this as a light and airy style for spring/summer.
“Karui” means light in Japanese. As in weight, not brightness…
]]>It’s no secret that shirts for guys are hard to keep tucked in, especially when there’s some dancing involved. The wedding crew are big dancers, so my first thought was to make the shirt look good even if it came untucked. It’s amazing what straightening some lines will do to a garment.
The initial idea for the floating pocket came, not as a pocket, but a buttonhole and fabric tab system that would go inside the shirt to support a flower. That got scrapped quick with the thought of a stem rubbing against my chest for a whole day. It was a summer wedding in the Okanagan, so that idea eventually transitioned into a functional pocket for sunglasses.
In the end the pocket did hold a flower, so it all worked out…
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