A collab with Your Kind Lifestyle

We recently collaborated with newly-emerged Chester independent Your Kind Lifestyle to design and produce two exclusive Japanese-inspired garments.

Made in a golden bronze linen, our handmade apron features a cross-back construction for comfort and security, and three roomy front pockets for storing all your kitchen, studio, or garden bits and pieces. Also available is our kimono-style robe - a relaxed fit with wide arms and hidden internal pockets, fastened with a matching tie belt in a rich olive green. Both are unisex and versatile, able to be worn around the house with ease, or even as practical layering additions to your wardrobe.

Working with Lucy and Graham of Your Kind Lifestyle was a wonderful opportunity to share our love of functional yet elegant Japanese style. With classically clean lines and low-profile pockets, the two pieces provide an understated usefulness reminiscent of haori utility jackets and light, summery yukata kimonos, elevated and modernised by gentle yet indulgent shades of olive and bronze. As slow fashion creators, we’re proud to continue the enduring tradition of hand-making that so closely ties with Japan’s history of crafting with traditional methods.

Like many of our garments, our kimono is composed of OEKO TEX-certified linen produced in small batches in a Lithuanian mill powered solely by renewable energy sources - Lithuania has a strong heritage of spinning and weaving linen fabric. It makes an excellent material for dependable clothing due to its durability, washability, and absorbency, and lends a tactile depth to the garment with a rich, soft weave that makes natural fibres so appealing to our senses. After collaboratively designing two versatile, everyday silhouettes with Lucy and Graham, we handcrafted each piece in our Rutland studio with any leftover material becoming part of our scrap-pack initiative.

We hope you find calm and joy in our considered reinvention of two staples - the successful result of sustainable makers coming together to celebrate the thoughtful, pared-back simplicity that makes Japanese design so timeless.

Words by Lily Burrows