DESCENDANT

When I was in my second year of junior high school, I went to BACKDROP in Shibuya with friends to buy Golden Bear varsity jackets. They had a lineup of vivid colors like red, blue, green, and burgundy. We each chose different body colors so we wouldn’t overlap, while deliberately selecting the same patches and having them sewn on right there in the shop. At that time, older high school kids were often seen wearing them, which made us want one too.
I chose a navy body with mustard-colored sleeves. Later on, I added a THRASHER patch to the right chest. I remember peeling it off from a THRASHER trucker cap I’d bought at VIOLENT GRIND in Osaka and sewing it on. Around that time, MCA from the Beastie Boys, "Licensed to Ill" era, was wearing varsity jackets, and it felt like everything suddenly clicked into place (laughs). Back then, without really understanding that these jackets originated as team jackets for American school sports clubs where the patches on the chest or sleeves symbolized victories and hard-earned achievements, we simply wore them as part of the American casual style.
Moving into the 1990s, I recall wearing them often, which made it almost feel like team wear. In Japan, varsity jackets even gained a kind of status, sometimes released as special New Year’s first-sale items.

The DESCENDANT varsity jacket, which we create every few years, returns this time as our final SPOT item of the year, a small year-end greeting, in a sense. I hope people enjoy wearing it in their own way.

Tetsu Nishiyama

This collection will be available at DESCENDANT stockists starting Saturday, December 20, 2025.