Kapital: Past Meets Present in Japan's Iconic Cult Brand
The Japanese label’s ascent from humble denim brand to global icon.
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Since the turn of the millennium, Japan has produced some of style’s most iconic streetwear, sneakers and denim using American cultural touchstones as a jumping-off point. Nowhere was this more pronounced than in the heritage revival of the late-2000s, in which fashion insiders embraced a newfound love of artisan denim, heavyweight flannels and the clothing of classic Americana. Kapital, a humble label founded in the ’80s, was among the brands leading this charge.
Founded in 1984 by Toshikiyo Hirata in Kojima, a semi-industrial prefecture on the outskirts of Okayama that’s often referred to as the Denim Capital of Japan, the brand embodies a mish-mash of these elements, blending streetwear, luxury and heritage through a distinctly Japanese lens. It’s that same daring and versatility, however, that makes Kapital so daunting to the uninitiated.
What follows is a brief history of the brand, followed by five key parts that help explain one of the weirdest and most wonderful Japanese menswear brands of all time.
Kapital: A Very Brief Retrospective
For the brand’s first two-odd decades, Kapital chugged along as a relatively modest operation. In 2002, Toshikiyo’s son, Kiro, left his position as a designer for 45RPM (also known as 45R, another famed Japanese denim specialist) to join his father’s business, bringing a wealth of design and fashion knowledge to the table.
This father-son dynamic is what produced Kapital as it stands today and, in a way, captures the essence of the label’s technique; a respectful blend of traditional, artisan manufacturing techniques with a youthful eye toward current trends.
As the reputation and success of Kapital grew, so too did its fanbase. In an effort to build on this momentum, Kapital introduced Kapital Kountry, a sub-label somewhere in between affordable diffusion line and elevated product. You’ll find everything from super-distressed denim jeans covered in repair stitches and patchworks to more refined garments which present traditional Japanese garments in their purest forms.
Today, Kapital has flagship stores scattered across Japan, each with interiors inspired by the culture and heritage of the surrounding area, and the label is stocked in high-fashion stores around the globe. As for the clothes themselves, the subsequent sections break them down into a selection of themes.
An East-Meets-West Aesthetic
Naturally, as a denim brand situated in the heart of Japan’s denim district, both denim and the various techniques involved in its manufacture run deep throughout Kapital as a brand, as do the backgrounds of the brand’s leaders. Both Toshikiyo and Kiro Hirata traveled to America during their youths, developing particular affections for the nation’s culture, whether expressed through classic workwear and denim, or the ever-changing cultural formations taking place on American streets.
It’s for this reason you’ll often notice a particular American-but-Japanese aesthetic in Kapital’s clothes; denim jeans decorated with traditional Japanese techniques, abstract references to ’60s hippie culture in the form of smiley faces and floral patterns, kimonos made out of bandanas etc. At the heart of Kapital is a deliberate collision of these two cultural milieus, alongside four other notable characteristics.
The Importance of Denim & Indigo
Kapital was founded as a denim brand, and the art of indigo dyeing runs deep through the brand; not just in the initial dying of the denim and garments, but in the unique patterns and textures produced when that same dye is worn, distressed and washed out.
One of the magical things about indigo as a textile color is that it encompasses an entire spectrum of shades and tones. Kapital uses indigo across a range of fabrics and garments, combining the natural dye with intentional distressing and washes to accentuate the character of each garment.
Aside from the importance of indigo dye to denim manufacturing, traditional indigo dyeing techniques have a long history in Japanese culture. Known in Japan as ai-zome, indigo gained popularity during the Edo period (1603-1867), a time many artisans used indigo sourced from the polygonum plant to dye their cotton garments. It also became central to a number of traditional Japanese artistic and decorative techniques, which leads to...
The Artisan Process
Take a look through any Kapital collection and you’ll notice a few running threads: patchwork constructions, blue-and-white contrast dyes, thick, white stitch patterns and tie-dye-esque motifs. Many of these are traditional Japanese garment methods that have been passed down for decades, sometimes centuries.
The patchwork patterns are an example of boro, a technique that entails stitching various leftover scraps of fabric into a single piece. Boro textiles are often assembled with a type of stitching called sashiko, which involves running a thick white cotton thread through the piece of fabric in vertical and horizontal directions, creating a gridlike pattern over the fabric.
Sashiko is also commonly used for decorative motifs, particularly geometric and kaleidoscopic patterns. It’s also an incredibly laborious form of decoration, requiring perfection in every stitch—length, spacing, thickness and so on. That’s why many garments with sashiko motifs command a hefty price.
Likewise, contrast dye techniques between indigo-dyed fabric and the natural cotton fabric are usually the product of two different techniques. One is batik, a technique that originated in Indonesia and involves “painting” a pattern onto undyed fabric using melted wax, and then applying dye over the top or into the spaces between. The other is shibori, a dyeing process that involves tying a series of knots into a textile before dipping it in dye, producing regular patterns and motifs in the unfolded fabric. And like all the techniques listed here, shibori has become a common motif in Kapital’s collections, applied to T-shirts, sweatshirts and sleeve designs.
An Unmistakable Military Influence
If indigo represents one end of the Kapital color spectrum, the other is olive drab. Like many American-influenced Japanese labels, there’s a strong undercurrent of military aesthetics in many of Kapital’s collections. There are several reasons for this.
For one, after World War II, American soldiers remained a strong presence in Japan, meaning that army styles naturally formed one aspect of classic Americana. Additionally, most military fabrics such as cotton sateen, nyco, canvas and herringbone are designed to be hard-wearing, making them appealing to designers and ensuring there’s always a decent supply of vintage, deadstock fabrics to be used.
And, perhaps most importantly, military styles have been regular fixtures not only in American fashion, but in the various subcultures that have adopted them, from combat pants in punk and MA-1 flight jackets in hardcore and hip-hop to M-65 jackets in film and television.
Bandana as Cultural Signifier
A more recent addition to Kapital’s visual repertoire, the brand makes extensive use of bandana fabrics across a whole range of garments. Again, there are several reasons for this. First, many bandanas are decorated using batik techniques, tying them into the traditionalist bent described above. Second, bandanas originated on the Indian subcontinent, meaning they’re woven into the fabric of the region and that there’s a wealth of vintage fabrics to be bought on the cheap.
Detail obsessives, Kapital’s use of bandanas also pays tribute to Elephant Brand bandanas, an American bandana brand that incorporated elephants into its labels. Kapital’s bandana accessories also feature a small woven label in one corner, swapping out the elephant in favor of a rat, a reference to Kiro’s Chinese Zodiac sign and a direct homage to Elephant Brand’s original labels.
On a more simplistic level, bandanas have long been a fixture of various American subcultures: army movies, biker gangs, inner-city gangs and hippies, and they’re a cultural icon that has been endlessly reproduced, both physically and symbolically, making an indelible mark on our collective psyche.
Kapital: The Bridge Between Past, Present and Future
Recapping the foundations of Kapital, one way to interpret the brand is as an exploration of the tensions between various opposing poles: tradition and innovation, town and country, blue and green, old and new, pure creation and reinterpretation. Like so much of fashion, many of Kapital’s greatest moments happen when they’re not trying to reinvent the wheel so much as put a new spin on something so commonplace that you’ve never really even questioned it.
It’s a method that’s as disruptive for their global fanbase as it is for their local audiences; kimonos made out of waffle fabric, biker jackets made out of bandanas, hooded sweatshirts reinterpreted with military pockets. Kapital is what you might get if you took a tab of acid, put as much cultural ephemera from the American century as you could fit into a blender and reassembled the pieces you were left with while still tripping. It’s crazy. It makes sense. It’s Kapital.