A hoodie doesn’t have to be a sweatshirt.

 

Hoodies are generally made of sweatshirt fabric, right?

It is soft and stretchy, and you do not mind wearing it somewhat roughly.
When you move your body, the fabric follows along on its own.

Of course, that is also what makes a hoodie appealing.

But this time, we set that premise aside.

<cantáte>

" Double Cloth Hooded Jacket "

COL : NOIR

¥187,000TAX IN

 

Good evening. I am Matsushima from cantáte.

This time, we are using Merino wool double-face, not sweatshirt fabric.

It is a worsted double weave made with carefully selected merino wool for both the warp and weft.

The two fabrics are joined with linking yarn, so although the appearance is clean, it has a substantial thickness when you touch it.

Still, it is not heavy.

If anything, it feels even lighter when you wear it than when you hold it.

It is light, but it does not look light.

This was particularly important this time.

First, let us talk about the construction.

If you make a hoodie from sweatshirt fabric, the fabric helps to a certain extent.

It stretches, and when you move your body, it gives way with you.

Even if the pattern is somewhat imprecise, you can still wear it.

That may be putting it a little roughly.

What we are using this time is woven fabric.

And it is wool double-face.

It is not designed on the assumption that it will stretch, nor is this fabric meant to be worn casually until it is worn out.

So how do we make it a garment that can actually move properly as a hoodie?

It has to be solved through the pattern.

How much ease should be given to the shoulders?

How much room should there be across the chest?

Where does it pull when you raise your arms?

Even so, which parts can be reduced so it does not look oversized?

We pay close attention to details like these.

You might wonder, since it is a hoodie, do we really need to go that far?

But I think of it the other way around.

The more ordinary a garment like this is, the more quickly any lack of care becomes obvious.

You cannot hide behind the design.

There is proper ease in the shoulders and chest.

But we are not trying to make it look oversized.

While retaining enough room to sit away from the body, the lines as they fall should be as sharp as possible.

It should be easy to wear.
But it should not look too much like an easy, relaxed garment.

I think that is just the right balance.

The hood is quite important too.

There is this idea that a hoodie looks cool if the hood is large, but that is not necessarily true.

If it is too large, it gets pulled toward the back, while if it is too small, it looks tight only around the neck.

And this fabric retains its shape more than sweatshirt fabric does.

So if you make it stand up too much, it suddenly looks artificial.

Conversely, if it lies too flat, it looks ordinary.

When it is not being worn up, it should still have a proper shape when viewed from behind.
But the hood itself should not be the only thing making a statement.

That is how far we take it.

The person wearing it can hardly see their back, after all.

But that is what other people see.

The way the collar opens up, and how it falls from the shoulders toward the hood.

Clothing is not made from the front alone.

If you are careless with things like this, it ends up looking somehow uncool.

Conversely, if you take proper care of those details, it can look somehow cool even if you cannot explain exactly what is good about it.

I pay attention to the small details to create that "something."

 

Next, the fabric.

Merino Double Cloth is made by double-weaving worsted merino wool.

When people hear "double face," some may imagine a softer, fuller fabric.

This time, it is not that kind of fabric.

Rather than raising the nap to make it look soft, we have retained the clean surface characteristic of worsted yarn.

On top of that, the double weave gives it thickness and resilience.

That is why it properly retains its shape.

Even on a hanger, its outline is unlikely to collapse.

It settles naturally onto the body when worn.

But it does not simply follow the shape of the body.

This sense of distance is excellent.

The garment does not cling completely to the body, nor does it stand on its own apart from the wearer.

It is a fabric that is truly completed when a person wears it.

Because it is piece-dyed, the color also has a little more depth.

It is not a color that looks uniformly applied; the color is integrated into the structure of the fabric.

Its character changes slightly when the light hits it or when you walk.

Well, this kind of thing is the hardest to convey in photographs.

I think you will understand immediately once you see the actual garment.

And then there is the styling.

In terms of its shape alone, it is completely a hoodie.

It has a hood.

It has a zip.

It has pockets.

Anyone would recognize it as a hoodie.

 

But once you put it on, it feels a little different.

 

Slacks feel more natural than sweatpants.

Sneakers obviously work with it, but leather shoes are not strange at all.

You can wear it over a shirt, or over a lightweight knit.

Even under a coat, it does not feel like, "I am wearing a hoodie as a layer today."

Rather, it looks as though a short jacket has been layered in between.

So, in my mind, it does not really feel like I made a hoodie.

I made a jacket with a hood.

That is closer to the point.

When I was younger, I thought that if it was a hoodie, something more recognizably hoodie-like was cooler.

A thick sweatshirt, with a large hood, just slightly dowdy.

If we are talking about my younger self, Matsushima as a boy would probably definitely choose that version.

Though I still like them.

But as you get older and what you wear gradually changes, it does not always have to be that.

I do want to wear comfortable clothes.

But I did not want to look like I had just dressed for comfort.

I like hoods.

But I did not want it to look childish.

Which raises the question: if that is the case, there is no need to make a hoodie out of sweatshirt fabric, either.

If you think of it solely as a hoodie, it is probably a slightly confusing garment.

But once you try it on, it is not that difficult to understand.

It is genuinely comfortable, and you can genuinely move in it.

It looks closer to a jacket, though.

I actually like that slight misalignment quite a bit.

 

cantáte Matsushima Shin