DESCENDANT

A Cowichan always tells a story.
When I create a Cowichan, I make a storyboard design based on the stories and memories that DESCENDANT depicts each season. We are approaching the winter release and hope it will be fun to enjoy the sweater as a collectible item, like a stamp or a year plate, an item that only comes out during that season.

Including this season, we have released five Cowichan sweaters so far. I think the oldest one was a penguin graphic. It’s a common motif, but it has subtexts, such as emperor penguins overwintering and the courage of the first penguin to jump into the ocean.

In terms of animals, last year, we created one of an animal we are very familiar with at DESCENDANT, a sperm whale in a spy hop graphic, a reconnaissance behavior where a whale breaches its head above the water's surface to check its surroundings.

I go skiing four or five times a year, so I used that experience to create a piece depicting a snowy mountain range and a skier. This graphic was based on my winter memories. The number “14” woven on the front is taken from the year 2014, the year DESCENDANT started.

I'm sure you can immediately feel the difference with this collaboration piece featuring the Grateful Dead. If you were to find this piece at a thrift store, you would be surprised to see Terrapins instead of the usual logo. (Laughs) It's still the case with Grateful Dead, but when someone is listening to it, or it's on the radio, I can't help but want to listen to my Dead playlist. The style differs depending on the generation, so my own Grateful Dead listening experiences also differ. I like the early days, such as "Workingman's Dead" and "American Beauty" in 1970. This Cowichan graphic is based on the 1977 album "Terrapin Station," with Terrapins dancing in front of a cabin-like station on the front cover and Dead Bears on the back. The album cover is daytime, but I imagined them playing all night long, so the colors are night-ish. It's a party late into the night for the Terrapins and Dead Bears.

This season, we've created a graphic based on our family's experiences this summer, where we often went kayaking out into the bay, so I designed a family of orcas swimming with their offspring. It also has an abstract atmosphere similar to the poster sof AMERICA'S CUP from the 1980s. The primary color is teal green. It would be more fun if there were colors.

Previously, I talked about how to wear the sweater , but there are some tips on how to style it from Jeff Bridges in The Coen Brothers' "The Big Lebowski."

Spoken by Tetsu Nishiyama