Vintage Carried Into the Present, Seen Through a Bucket Bag

Vintage furniture and bags that have been looked after for years never fail to hold our attention. In their wake, a great many vintage-inspired products have appeared - but work made with the depth of understanding that Stevenson Overall Co. brings, work that carries the spirit itself rather than the surface, may hold something that genuinely moves people.

Today we'd like to introduce a collaboration bag born of a fateful meeting between two makers: [Stevenson Overall Co.], who carry the spirit of vintage into contemporary garments, and [SUNSET CRAFTSMAN CO.], who set out to make pieces that, like vintage clothing, are loved for years and grow richer with use.

The brand began with what can only be called a fated meeting between Zip Stevenson - head and designer of HTC, the man known as Dr. Denim - and Atsusuke Tagaya. The story goes back to the day the two came to look at a small factory in Indiana, in the United States, that had turned out fine workwear through the 1930s before closing under the weight of the Great Depression. By chance they had the opportunity to meet a relative of the former owner, and learned just how uncompromising that factory had been about the way it made things. Deeply moved - and finding that the factory's name was the same as Zip's own surname - the two launched their brand as STEVENSON OVERALL CO. in 2005.

At its founding, the brand started with what the two knew best: denim trousers and belts. The one thing they say they were determined to reproduce in their denim was the single-needle flat-felled seam, a construction from before the 1920s. This process could hardly be called efficient, and the reason they have kept it as their standard method comes down to one thing that has never changed since the brand began - the particular character that only handwork brings.

The pieces they make draw deeply on vintage clothing - designs and detail work now largely forgotten. Their collections rebuild those elements as contemporary garments that hold two opposing ideas at once: old and new, modern and yet timeless.

SUNSET CRAFTSMAN CO. works from a studio in Akaiwa, Okayama Prefecture. Look at the studio alone - a pre-war community hall, converted - and you could almost believe you had wandered into a small town in rural America. And inside, quietly, is work made in earnest.

Mr. Kanayama spent years dealing in vintage clothing across the United States. In pieces made carefully, rather than mass-produced for efficiency, he found something that made people want to use them for a long time. Having seen that first-hand, he began his own work with the belief that one should make only what is truly needed, and with a commitment to pieces that, like vintage clothing, are loved for years and take on character as they are used.

One of the defining features here is that every stage - cutting the cloth, sewing, painting, cutting out the leather parts and the metal plates, stamping and assembly - is carried out by one pair of hands, which is how the quality is held so high. Apart from the machine sewing, everything is made entirely by hand, giving the pieces both strength and a real sense of craft.

The brand takes its name from Sunset in California, the place Kanayama found most agreeable of all during his travels across the United States.

Behind the fact that Stevenson Overall Co. and SUNSET CRAFTSMAN CO. collaborate every season, you can sense a feeling they hold in common: a regard for things made by human hands. Take this tag, for instance.

This is the brand tag made by Kanayama of SUNSET CRAFTSMAN CO. They say human hands cannot draw a true circle - and even so, he cuts, files and stamps each piece of metal himself, bringing it as close to a circle as he can. Even in this small tag on a SUNSET CRAFTSMAN CO. bag, you can feel the thought that went into it.

Zip of Stevenson Overall Co. puts it this way: "The pieces that become part of your life always carry a texture of the hand, something no straight line can express.  From everything I have handled over the years, I believe that adding handwork as a kind of seasoning is what gives a product its soul." Hearing that, you feel it is this shared conviction about making by hand that binds the two brands together so firmly.

And now a bag from these two brands, each cutting its own path, has arrived.

The SOC × SCC collaboration bucket bag: rugged at first glance, and warm on closer acquaintance. A rounded drawstring shape, charming to look at, and packed with careful thinking about material and construction. Taking a canvas vintage bucket bag as its starting point, it has been rebuilt in wool melton for a more refined, understated finish. The design source is a pouch issued by the US military.

* The military pouch that inspired the design

This is the original: a red cotton canvas pouch from around the 1930s. Stevenson Overall Co. have reworked the material through their own lens. The reason the pouch is such a striking colour is that military kit often used shades that would make a man easy for his own side to spot if he were lost. Jackets, too, were frequently made with bold colours - orange linings and the like.

Simple on the outside, but built for capacity and everyday use, with pockets fitted inside. The two-tone heavy wool melton is painted to give the cloth body, then worked by hand to knead the fabric and remove the excess paint so that it settles in - a laborious process, and the source of its character. The leather strap allows the bag to be carried two ways, so choose whichever suits you.

It comes in two sizes, SMALL and MEDIUM. It suits men and women alike; here's how it looks carried by a woman.

★ The small size is here

★ The medium size is here

With a material this substantial, the bag holds its own against a winter coat and becomes the centrepiece of an outfit. The sturdy wool melton it is built from is a dense, hard-wearing cloth of the kind used where friction is heaviest, and the paint finish makes it tougher still.

It stands up easily on a flat surface, there is generous pocket space inside, and it looks right even with a purse, a key case and other small things simply dropped in - a genuinely easy bag to live with. A piece that gets noticed, and one we'd recommend to women as readily as to men. 

Some garments and bags you could talk about all day. Here is a small selection from the Stevenson Overall Co. collection.

A simple band collar shirt, the "Saloon". It is made in a factory that specialises in dress shirts, and finished with the fine, beautiful stitching that only dress shirt construction gives.

The classic details are not forgotten either - the rounded hem at the front opening, the reinforcing gussets at the side seams.

Being a band collar shirt, the neckline is clean and uncluttered, and the shine of the shell buttons lifts it further. It is a trim, well-mannered shirt that can be worn on formal occasions - with a three-piece suit, for instance. It is long enough to tuck in, yet still looks neat worn loose. The cloth has a real vintage air, patterned with yarn-dyed threads, and once you learn that those threads were spun on 1940s spinning machinery, it all makes sense.

A natural colour, and cloth with an appealing unevenness across its surface. You can feel the care taken over the material. Natural and refined at once, it is a shirt we'd recommend to women as well. Like a vintage shirt with history packed into every inch, this is one to slip on without ceremony.

Men's Loopwheeled French Terry / Set-On Hood Sweatshirt

This loopwheeled, set-on-hood sweatshirt reproduces details that are difficult to make today because of the sheer number of sewing operations and the complexity involved: the freedom sleeve, inserted V-gussets on both sides, and a modified cuff rib, cut deeply on the inside, that is rare even among vintage pieces. A freedom sleeve refers to a pattern in which the seam from shoulder to arm is drawn as a curve, worked out so that the arm can move more freely. It is a construction often seen in sweatshirts of the 1940s and 50s.

The cotton stitching that attaches the hood and pocket loses colour as the garment is worn, so the contrast against the body grows stronger and the vintage feel deepens over time. The awkwardly wide proportions typical of vintage sweatshirts have been adjusted and rebuilt into a well-balanced silhouette. The cloth is an original French terry knitted on a loopwheel machine; knitted slowly, over a long time, it keeps the natural softness of the yarn and has a plump, air-filled hand. Another great virtue of loopwheel knitting is that it does not lose that softness however often you wash it. 

Soft and light against the skin, this is a piece we'd happily recommend to women too.

Pair it with a French terry skirt, for example, for a relaxed, grown-up mood. It goes beautifully with the vintage air the sweatshirt carries.

The warmth of something made by hand, and the delicacy of the work in it, enrich the owner as well. Clothes and bags like these become the pieces you reach for without thinking when you open the wardrobe - a kind of talisman for the days you want to look your best.

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