BAG
BRANDS/SUMI & SON
A sheer peach souvenir jacket over an indigo skirt on an old Kojima street
Outside the workshop in Kojima, under the indigo noren.IRO KAMA (AI-GENERATED)
JAPAN · FOUNDED 1979 · 4 PIECES IN THE SELECTION

SUMI & SON

SUMI & SON is a small family denim workshop in Kojima, the seaside town in Okayama where Japanese jeans grew up. Sumi Hara opened it in a rented garage in 1979 with two second-hand sewing machines; her son Ren joined twenty years later and still cuts every pattern by hand on the same table.

The workshop's language is mending. Old indigo is patched, re-stitched with white sashiko and patched again until the repair becomes the design. Nothing is meant to look new for long: cloth is chosen to fade, soften and take the shape of whoever wears it.

From that base the family plays. A souvenir jacket is cut in sheer organza so the embroidery seems to float; work pants come in a loud tomato red; a chunky cardigan is knitted with needles left out, so its argyle is made of holes rather than colour. Every piece is sewn in Kojima, in small runs, by the same dozen hands.

A cream argyle cardigan on a rainy canal-side walk at night
The argyle cardigan, out on a wet night by the canal.IRO KAMA (AI-GENERATED)

In the Selection

Sheer peach souvenir jacket with embroidered crane and tiger, worn over an indigo skirt
Sheer Souvenir Jacket
$333
Cream open-knit argyle cardigan over a black top, on a rainy canal walk in Osaka at night
Open-Knit Argyle Cardigan
$222
Pale grey drawstring track pants with a cream overshirt, on a stone lane in Kyoto
Drawstring Track Pants
$312
Tomato-red twill cargo pants with a matching work jacket, worn on a Tokyo street at dusk
Tomato Twill Cargo Pants
$159
SUMI & SON — Iro Kama