If you've been reading us for a long time, you know we love chambray .
On a shirt, it's a fabric that's comfortable anywhere, whether with rolled-up chinos and running shoes; or with jeans, ankle boots, a blazer and a nice tie. This is why the chambray shirt was the first garment we wanted to make under the BonneGueule line.
If I remain very satisfied with our Italian chambray, in the back of my mind, I knew that one day we would release a shirt with a very high-end Japanese chambray... This is also one of the reasons why we created this Japan Line: to be able to offer you a Japanese chambray in addition to our Italian chambray shirt.
It’s time to present everything to you in detail!
Japan Line chambray shirt, Barbour parka (Bristol model).
The material: a unique Japanese chambray
Japan Line obliges, the chambray is Japanese: it comes from one of the specialists in Japanese chambray, the house Maruwa Kobishi .
It is a great Japanese weaver, specializing in fabrics with rich and varied textures. The extent of its know-how is impressive, because the materials that Maruwa produces all have a little something extra, and recognizable.
As usual, the Japanese are very stingy with information on their subjects. Have fun googling “Maruwa”, you will hardly find anything! We only know that the brand supplies major houses (and given the quality of their fabrics, we want to believe them), but it's impossible to find out more...
The chambray of the Japan Line shirt is special, since it is obviously made of cotton (86%), but also linen (7%) and ramie (also 7%).
This is what ramie (called Chinese nettle) looks like, which is not used to make soup.
If you're familiar with cotton and linen, ramie may be a more obscure fiber. However, it is one of the oldest textile fibers used , as it began to be woven more than 6,000 years ago.
Concretely, it resembles a nettle and has properties quite similar to linen, in terms of resistance and ventilation in the face of heat.
Moses used it in his outfits. Or Christian Bale... One of the two.
What is very surprising is that linen and ramie are rustic and irregular fibers, but the blend on this fabric results in a surprisingly soft chambray, which remains after washes.
It has a “warmer” hand than a classic chambray and feels lighter.
The lightness of Japanese chambray will give you wings. Well, come on, I'm telling you the truth: there's a trick... Yes, yes, I swear. (Japan Line chambray shirt, Uniqlo cardigan, BG-1.1 jeans, Selected desert boots)
The texture is also very different from a classic material. As we have mentioned several times, the Japanese love raw, real, authentic materials .
We can see it on Japanese kimonos, well textured, with raw materials.
For example, our Italian chambray is very “smooth” and even. In comparison, Japanese chambray appears much more “grainy”. And this is precisely the advantage of mixing linen and ramie, because it allows you to have a rich texture .
We can clearly see that Japanese chambray has a grainy feel and Italian chambray is smoother.
There are in fact two elements which give this artisanal dimension:
- the color of the wires. Indeed, chambray is made up of blue and white threads. If you look closely, you will see that the white thread is sometimes more or less ecru and that the blues have very subtle variations in color: this is what gives this artisanal look! On the other hand - and according to my tests - the color does not change wash after wash.
- the diameter of the wires. It is thanks to linen and ramie that the threads have very slightly different thicknesses, which gives the fabric a real personality. We're miles away from the totally smooth, uniform fabrics you see everywhere.
Even if describing a color is always a very delicate exercise, we would be tempted to say that the color of chambray is between a Mayan blue and a sky blue...
In any case, I never liked chambrays that were too dark, which is why we wanted a much brighter color.
The weave is more open and the addition of “airy” fibers like linen and ramie mean that it will be a very good shirt as soon as the temperatures rise.
The cut and finishes of the Japan Line shirt
Concerning the cut, to preserve the material, it has been very slightly modified to avoid the slightest tension, while retaining our characteristic silhouette.
Concretely, the build has not changed, the shoulders are still the same , we have just added a little ease at the stomach level. I insist on one point: take exactly the same size as the chambray shirt, because as I said, the shoulders have not moved and the fit is almost the same.
Even with this addition of ease, the bend is well preserved.
Even if you are very thin, the shirt will fit you without problem, like the Italian chambray one.
How do I know it's the right size?
- There is not the slightest horizontal fold: visually, the bust is perfectly uniform .
- There are " fluidity pleats ": they allow you not to overstress the seams and to have real comfort.
- The back falls perfectly straight , which allows you to have the right amount of comfort.
In terms of finishes, we have obviously kept the button-down hidden at the collar , which allows it to be kept firmly in place.
The buttons are made from the same wood as those on our Italian chambray shirt, namely organic wood from Italy which develops a patina over time.
We also placed the last buttonhole horizontally to better distribute the tension of the fabric at the hips.
The horizontal buttonhole helps prevent unsightly creases at the bottom of your shirt when you sit down.
And finally, the little detail that kills: in order to pay homage to the Japanese side of the material, the reinforcement swallow is selvedge. Because yes, it’s a Japanese selvedge chambray!
A detail that will please purists. Note that the color of the shirt changes a lot, it takes the light well.
For manufacturing, the shirt is made in exactly the same workshop as our Italian chambray shirt.
How to get the shirt?
The Japan Line has just been released, this Sunday February 22, 2015 at 2 p.m.!
The chambray shirt is available here now, and the selvedge jean is right here.
