DESCENDANT

“DIRECTOR’S CUT” introduces seven winter styles from the DESCENDANT 2023 Autumn & Winter collection, each with the director’s behind the scenes stories.

JACKET:MOUNTAIN HAT PADDING JACKET CLIMASHIELD
KNIT: GAUFRE WAFFLE CREW NECK
PANTS: 1995 DENIM TROUSERS BAGGY
HAT: DAWN BEANIE

This puffer jacket has an old-school outer material of 60/40 cotton nylon cloth, which was the classic outdoor material before the invention of nylon and is filled with American-made Climashield® APEX filling. Snap buttons and zippers are classic, but the one that fit my image was a photo of MCA, taken by Glenn E. Friedman, around the time of the Beastie Boys’ “Check Your Head” (1992). I remember them wearing something similar to this, so I tried to do the styling by imagining their closets when they were wearing second-hand clothes. Even to this day, it’s hard to forget a photo I cherished so long ago.

JACKET: SUNKEN COWICHAN SWEATER
CUT&SEWN: CACHALOT ORGANIC COTTON STRIP SS CLASSIC FIT
HAT: DORM 6PANEL

For winter, DESCENDANT makes Cowichan sweaters. The patterns are often inspired by nature or winter sports. This winter, I was inspired by the abstract posters of America’s CUP (yacht racing) from the 1980s, so I thought recreating a similar atmosphere of parent and child orcas in a teal green would be nice. In the Coen brothers’ movie “The Big Lebowski,” Jeff Bridges was wearing a white T-shirt underneath a Cowichan sweater, which made me feel like I found the correct way of wearing it. I never considered wearing a T-shirt underneath the sweater because the fabric can be prickly, so we try not to make them irritable at DESCENDANT. (Laughs)

CUT&SEWN: BURY ZIP FLEECE
PANTS: CLASP TWILL TROUSERS
HAT: CETUS 6PANEL

A stand up collar pullover paired with a bi-colored cap style. The way I saw people of my generation dressing in New York in the early 1990s is still fresh in my mind, and DESCENDANT brings flashbacks of these scenes. There’s something cool about stand up collars and I recall everyone was wearing bi-colored caps. When I was looking through ice hockey magazines from the 1990s, all the caps were bi-colored. I like the fact that not many people wear them these days.

CUT&SEWN: PE CREW NECK O3
PANTS: DUT SATIN TROUSERS
HAT: CACHALOT 6PANEL

JACKET: MANCHOT FLEECE JACKET
CUT&SEWN: CACHALOT ORGANIC COTTON STRIP SS CLASSIC FIT
PANTS: HORIZON FLEECE TROUSERS
HAT: CACHALOT 5PANEL

Have you noticed that there are more dark colored items in winter? I tend to have a lot of things in that same sense, and it makes me depressed sometimes. (Laughs) So even though this sweatshirt is black, the ozone finishing, which uses less water during the process, gives a faded black look. The cap also has a brighter black appearance by weaving white thread into black denim. It’s black but light colored. The pants are typically dark black so that you can see the contrasts.

In that sense, the boa fleece cardigan is dark black but brushed to make it look lighter. The mesh bonding design provides heat retention and feels soft and comfortable. The tricot lining is brightly colored and has purple trim. The pants are made of purple fleece with a different texture. The top is called “MANCHOT FLEECE,” MANCHOT means penguin in French and as you can guess, penguins inspired this fleece. Doesn’t the main visual on this top page look similar to an emperor penguin?

SHIRT: TETTY CORDUROY LS SHIRT
PANTS: SMOCK OXFORD TROUSERS CORDURA
HAT: DAWN BEANIE

JACKET: RANCHO DUCK JACKET O3
PANTS: DC-6 ORGANIC COTTON TWILL TROUSERS
HAT: DUTY BEANIE

When I think back on it, for some reason, there were a lot of pullovers in the 1990s. This may be because traditional items such as fleece, shirts and team jackets were all new items for young people at the time. There is a style in which you wear a hoodie underneath a shirt, but when we were in our teens, there wasn’t much in the wardrobe, so in a sense, we had no choice but to wear them like that to prevent getting cold. This is especially true in places like New York, where it gets freezing. It’s not fashion, it’s more of a necessity to wear a shirt that you might have because just wearing a hoodie is not enough and will be too cold. The shirt or coat you wear is grabbed from your father’s closet. This time’s style, the corduroy stand collar pullover is worn on top. It has its quirks, but I think it’s something you will naturally want to wear over a hoodie when it gets cold.

The last look is also a hoodie style. A dark-colored outfit with a work-style jacket made with duck fabric over the hoodie. This is the standard for layering and I used to wear this style myself when it’s cold. Full-zips are easy to wear, so I naturally settle on this style. It’s also good when riding a motorcycle.

Spoken by Tetsu Nishiyama