Frankly, most of what passes for workwear nowadays isn’t actually workwear. For most brands inspired by classic utilitarian aesthetics, from Nigel Cabourn and Margaret Howell to James Coward and Kaptain Sunshine, it’s about look, not function. Their clothes channel workwear’s utility-first appeal but aren’t actually designed for hard labor. Carhartt is an exception in that it still meets real-world workwear standards. Yet its fashion credentials rest on a paradox: useful-looking stuff that’s only truly useful for getting a fit off. The appeal of this contrast is reflected in Paracia’s best-selling shoe, “The Non-Safety Shoe,” and in pieces from Camiel Fortgens, which until recently carried an interior tag warning the wearer that they’re “not to be used as personal protective equipment.” The tag was a disclaimer, but it’s not like anyone wears a $850 “Worker Jacket” or $630 “Overalls” to get them ripped and dirty.
Tsukasa Yaehata, the 48-year-old designer behind Japanese label TATAMIZE, has a very different stance on workwear. “What fascinates me about workwear,” he says, “is that it’s clothing not made for the sake of fashion. It’s clothing that exists simply as a matter of course.”
Based in Sendai, the capital of Miyagi Prefecture in Japan’s northeast, TATAMIZE operates as a one-person atelier with Yaehata handling everything himself, from design and sourcing to patterning, cutting, and sewing. “I grew up surrounded by sewing machines. My mother was a patchwork teacher, and my uncle was a tailor, so making clothes came very natural to me,” he says. Even as a teenager in the 1990s, he knew he wanted to turn it into a living. He first learned the basics of pattern-making and sewing at a vocational college (senmon gakkō) in his hometown, before taking a job at a factory producing car tires. “It was just to earn money and become independent,” he explains.
TATAMIZE – the name combines the French word for diffusing light, “tamiser,” and the Japanese word “tatami,” meaning ‘to fold’ – launched in 2004. At first, Yaehata focused on reproducing vintage British and American garments with as many intricate details as possible. His first item was a military-style coat made of olive-colored crepe-back satin featuring hand-warmer pockets and a removable wool liner. By 2010, he began producing seasonal collections in factories and distributing to retailers across Asia and Europe.
That changed around 2020. Yaehata decided to strip his designs of ornamentation, make every item himself, adopt a made-to-order system, and work with just a few select stores in Japan, including Rusk in Koshi and Barnshelf, a headwear-only retailer housed in a renovated cowshed in Sanda. Yaehata also opened his own small shop attached to his atelier, which he runs himself, called “Nowhere Else.” On weekdays, he travels the 2.5 miles from his home in Kaigamori to Jozenji-dori. “The street here is lined with beautiful Zelkova serrata trees,” he says. “There are flower shops, a few cafes, yakitori restaurants, and a library. Everyone is incredibly kind.”
From the outside, the place, tucked inside an old, inconspicuous brown apartment building, doesn’t look very welcoming. Once inside, it’s a different story. TATAMIZE’s work pants, jackets, caps and bags are displayed on old military beds and other antique furniture, and wooden planks cover the floor “so that people, mostly regulars, can enter without taking off their shoes as you normally would in Japan,” says Yaehata. At the moment, he has about hundred items in stock, from a pink-and-white striped cotton “Smock Shirt” to brown woolen mittens. All other items, including different styles of shirts, trousers and coats, are made-to-order. Since everything is made by hand, some patience is needed. For example, the Work Pants and Work Jacket set, crafted from Japanese cotton canvas woven in a one-woman studio in Nishiwaki, takes up to two months to deliver.
Rather than looking to America’s past, Yaehata draws on the Japanese working culture that surrounds him. Take his “Work Cap,” which comes in a wide variety of fabrics and colors and sells for about $60. “It wasn’t designed with a vintage reference in mind. I simply considered what would be practical. It has a short brim without a stiffener and consists of four simple parts. It’s easy to produce, easy to wash, and easy to wear while working.” Since its introduction about a decade ago, Yaehata has sold the style to potters, bakers, gardeners, leather artisans, coffee roasters, furniture makers, “and a lot of other people who use their hands to create things.” The cap has even been adopted as part of the staff uniform at several restaurants in and around Sendai.
Or take the “Apron,” handmade from off-white Japanese twill linen. Yaehata designed it for himself and prototyped it while patterning, cutting, and sewing. That’s why he knows the split hem “allows for easy leg movement,” making it “very functional for working while seated.” Likewise, because he also wears it for “non-sewing situations” — in his case, gardening and feeding his chickens — he can personally attest that it’s a “long-lasting” item that “develops a beautiful texture with repeated use.” Not bad for $90.
Today, menswear sells garments inspired by clothes originally meant to be cheap and practical for eye-watering prices. Although it’s not Yaehata’s intention, TATAMIZE feels like a silent protest against that. This is partly because of the prices, which he’s able to keep low by working without a team, skipping PR, and ignoring fashion weeks. But mostly because, while many contemporary brands claim to make workwear, TATAMIZE actually does.
“I don’t want to make fashionable workwear. I simply want to make workwear,” Yaehata says. “One day, I hope the people cleaning the streets of my hometown will wear my clothing. And I hope it will be so everyday that you wouldn’t even know whose design it is.”
