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A couple who wanted to do things differently
Monday January 22, 2024, 11 a.m. A few Parisian arrondissements from the spotlight of Fashion Week, I walk down a silent alley and arrive in front of a small boutique. No big logo on the facade, no sign sticking out, just a small card on the door that tells me I'm in the right place.
I push it and two men greet me with a smile.
Both are Japanese. The first is wearing a navy blue velvet workwear jacket and light gray wool joggers. He introduces himself in English: Tomo, agent who supports the brand in its development, from his offices in Tokyo. He has worked there for 4 years, for Cottle as well as for other fashion brands.
The second wears a layer of workwear jackets, one green and one blue, as well as velvet pants. Tomo makes the introductions: Toshi, for Toshiaki Watanabe. Founder of the brand and creator of its entire collection. As he speaks less English, Tomo sometimes translates. Especially when he tells me about the journey that led him to the creation of his brand. And the running of this showroom today.
Toshi spent his childhood in the town of Kurashiki in Okayama Prefecture, the cradle of the Japanese textile industry. It was in this region that Japanese weavers began making their own denim in the 1960s, following the success of American jeans imported after the Second World War.
Textile culture is therefore very present in the neighborhoods. Workshops and art museums in particular, which speak a lot to Toshi. There he developed his taste for craftsmanship and, at the same time, found in his clothes a means of expressing himself. It's quickly understood for him: he wants to make it his career, and allow others to discover the pleasure and personal development that he found in his clothes.
It is cultivated and trained in small workshops. At 18, he left to attend a major sewing and design school in Tokyo: Bunka Fashion College. There he met his wife, Yukari Watanabe, and it was with her that he created his own brand later, in 2015.
Because by working in textile manufacturing after his training, Toshi deepened his knowledge and developed his relationships in the industry. He knows how to stock up and can get started. After seeing the frenzy of the global textile industry, he is keen to offer a different approach. No excess product stock, each piece is made individually on request. No new collection every season, Toshi wants a single permanent offering that he will take the time to develop over the years. And no matter how long this development takes, he wants each garment to be worth it, to bring to life a particular experience and know-how.
The name will be Cottle, a combination of the English terms Cotton and Kettle meaning “kettle”. The idea is to consider denim (its first major development work) as an essential domestic good that is constantly present in our daily lives.
To start the adventure, Toshi and Yukari settle in Kojima, a town in Okayama. Weaving and dyeing denim is an important art for the city. The couple took over a 120-year-old workshop there which was destined for destruction. They restart some of the looms. They do everything on site with three tailors and that's the entire team.
Toshiaki in his workshop.
Creating and manufacturing in the same place allows Toshi to directly materialize his material ideas to test them, to know if they work or not, if he can continue in this or that direction.
For each subject, I start from scratch. It's a lot of trial, error, and starting again. It can take us a year and a half, two or even three years depending on the fabric developed.”
For comparison, most brands take between six months and a year to develop a garment.
At no point during the discussion do Toshi and Tomo utter the words “slow fashion” or “luxury”. However, I have never seen a brand with such a “slow” approach to fashion, with such a small team. Obviously, we necessarily consume resources when manufacturing clothing, but here, the approach is much more virtuous. And when my eyes and my hands scan the collections on the racks, I tell myself that Cottle has little to envy of the great designers who parade on the catwalks a few metro stations away.
The challenge: recreate nature
What attracts us so much to Japanese materials is their irregularities and colors which bring authenticity and naturalness. A bit as if they had grown somewhere, in the ground or on a tree.
When Toshi tells me about his work on the collection, I realize that he took this concept much further.
The collection is divided into two ranges:
- “Uniform for living”, bringing together wardrobe essentials which are therefore designed as an everyday uniform.
- “Senkohsuiu”, which could be translated as the idea of creating the unexpected in materials, by incorporating the beauty of life around us.
And precisely, to create a garment, Toshi always starts from the material . It is only afterwards that he will develop the cut and the patterns, so that they adapt as best as possible to the latter.
This is what he did for “Earth Wall”, my favorite fabric in the collection.
To obtain it, he took inspiration from the texture and colors of an old stone wall still standing in front of his workshop. A work that well represents the “Senkohsuiu” philosophy.
To pursue his philosophy, Toshi wants to find a composition as rich as that of the wall in question, which is not only made of stone: its creation involved steel powder, bamboo and even straw. for fermentation. This allowed good resistance to time, the elements and therefore to different climates. Hence the quest for a durable and wearable four-season fabric in Japan.
Toshi therefore uses a cashmere and wool yarn, the twisting of which on an old and slow loom creates textural irregularities.
It pairs with a cotton thread, thick and also born from a weak twist, which makes it more nervous.
To get closer to the color of the wall, Toshi ended up finding the right formula by not dyeing any threads. It thus preserves the most natural appearance possible. Then, he adjusts the color using a fungus: the basidiomycete.
He then creates a variation of this material by dyeing the cotton thread black, which gives a very different result.
Second subject that had the most impact on me: “Leaf Vein”. As its name suggests, it is inspired by the vascular structure of leaves, with embroidery placed by hand on a collar, on a lining or along a seam.
We also find a matte appearance and a crunchy texture which actually resembles that of a leaf.
What intrigued me the most about this fabric were the dyeing techniques used. Everything is dyed by hand, from natural indigo (something rather rare these days, even in the ecosystem of Japanese weavers), natural indigo mixed with dyes from old surplus clothes, resulting in an accidental green and even… khaki.
Toshi thus introduced me to “Kakishibu”, an ancient dyeing method made from fermented persimmon juice. The color is then fixed with a natural agent called mordant. Each piece is then hung and dried in the sun, which oxidizes the dye and makes it darker.
Although the third material on display is part of the other range, “Uniform for living”, it is also inspired by nature. Of a wheat field at sunset, more precisely. And when we see this ecru velvet, we understand the idea.
Toshi named it “Golden wheat field Corduroy”. The ribs are thick as I like, the hand is soft and supple. It is the result of a blend of organic Pima cotton and Shankar cotton (from the Shankarapura region of India), both renowned for their fiber length and softness.
How does nature prune?
Here are some photos to show you, and because I wasn't going to leave without trying these pieces.
Most cuts are straight or slightly loose. The clothes are unisex and their sizes range from 0 to 4. For men, 1 corresponds to S, 2 to M, 3 to L and 4 to BON, you understand.
As they say in the industry, I sized down one size for the shirt. A size 2, therefore M, for my usual L (XL at BonneGueule) and my 1m91 for 80 kilos. The shoulder line stops where it should, no excess length or width on the sleeves for my taste.
The pants, made in a brown version of “Golden wheat field Corduroy”, require a size up. A size 3, or 34, for my small 32. It's a high waist. The fit is straight, even slightly flared at the bottom, and the suppleness of the velvet means that it falls very well. A retouch is to be expected in length.
The matching jacket is in my usual size. 3, therefore L. Also straight volume and small sleeve shortening to be expected in my case.
It turns out that this color, available on site and in my size, matches quite well with my BonneGueule polo collar sweater. The shoes are Velasca and the belt is from Olive Clothing.
When I go to change in the cabin, Toshi hands me a pair of jeans to try on. His first major work of creation through experimentation. Three years of development. Toshi was keen to reproduce iconic selvedge denim, developed by Kichinosuke Tonomura at the research institute in Kurashiki, the town of his childhood. He wanted to find this red selvedge edging installed by hand.
Its fine red color is characteristic of Bengara dye, used in traditional Japanese clothing for centuries. Problem: weakened by this natural dye, the spool of thread broke every time. Toshi eventually found a way to strengthen the wire while preserving its heritage, by reinforcing it with wax.
I'm trying the jeans with the jacket from the “Leaf Vein” range.
It's a 34 (so size up on the two pants worn) and it sits very well on my size (a small 32). It's a high waist, with a straight cut that would have deserved shoes less imposing than mine that day, very soft and speckled denim. 91% cotton, 9% linen.
For the jacket, it's size down : size 2/M. A small touch-up of the sleeves to be expected.
As you can imagine, it is quite normal to have small differences in sizing with artisanal materials that live their lives like this. I hope this fitting helps you if you take the plunge. For other cuts, you can refer to the measurements on the clothing presentation pages. Which brings us to the question…
Where to find Cottle clothing?
For the entire collection, Tomo recommends going through the Cottle e-shop which is based in Japan. There will therefore be customs fees to be expected.
The Swiss e-shop DeeCee Style also offers a selection of the brand. And there is also Canoe Club, based in the United States. Sometimes you'll find Cottle selections at Mr. Porter and for second hand, Ebay will be your salvation.
You can also watch for the possible arrival of the brand in Europe, even if only for a showroom, on the Cottle Instagram page. An international opening that Toshi would like to be able to achieve one day. We wholeheartedly hope so too, because he and his team deserve it.
Seeing the price of certain pieces, we can talk about the purchase of a lifetime. A fragment of craftsmanship that can hardly be compared to anything other than luxury. The kind of luxury we'd like to see more often. The one who brings traditions and passions to life, passing on to us the subtleties they have to teach us.
Thanks for passing along, Toshi.
