Engawa, Washi, and Denim! | TCB x DENIMIO WASHI TCBDMHT01

2020 has been a stressful year and many of us had to spend a lot of time at home. We had plans to work on a new collab with TCB for quite some time and it became apparent to us that this project would be influenced by current events. We talked a lot with Inoue-san about easier times and being outside. In Japan, we went a trip down on memory lane, thinking of those summers of our youth when we could sit outside on the front porches of our grandparents. This front porch, which is uniquely designed in Japan, is called Engawa. It’s where you bathe in the sun (it basically is a sunroom) and just enjoy the company of your family and your pets. Just look at the patch where a cat is chilling on the front porch: that’s pure Engawa!

We wanted to create a jeans that transported this feeling. Obviously, it’s quite challenging to incorporate a front porch into denim. There is a special design feature of the Engawa: the sliding door made out of paper. That is when we realised that the best way to channel or desire for sunny days with the family was to create denim that was partially made of Japanese paper: that is how the WASHI fabric was born. It consist of 71% cotton and 29% Japanese paper. It’s a very hard fabric, that will stretch less than other denim, it’s quite coarse and will therefore give amazing fades. It’s somewhat streaky, has a lovely texture, and the indigo will fade to a very bright electric blue. It basically started fading when we put our hands on it! Even though it is a stiff and sturdy, it’s also a very lightweight fabric that you can wear all year around: even on a warm summer day. We cannot thank TCB enough for creating this fabric for us. It is a very costly fabric that is hard to make, but it is so worth it!