Wakayama Daibakusho / Toyosonko x Iwaki Textile (Wakayama) / Stiff, Despite Being Wool!

"It looks like a standard item, but the fabric is elaborate. We made what we truly want to wear" (Toyosonko / Mr. Tanaka)
"I think it has a good look. It also fits the shape well" (Iwaki Textile / Mr. Iwaki)
Iwaki Textile is located in Takano, Wakayama Prefecture (centered around the former Takano town), a world-renowned pile fabric production area. While there are many types of pile fabrics, such as woven pile, knitted pile, sinker pile, and raschel pile, Iwaki Textile specializes in thick fabrics, mainly sinker pile.
The fabric used this time is a brushed lining fabric knitted with a 14-gauge knitting machine called a "seal fly machine." It uses "GR7," a pioneer of gray heather, as the face yarn, spun at 40 singles, with a 10-count yarn for the middle thread and 16-count merino wool (equivalent to 10-count cotton yarn) for the back thread.
The seal fly machine forms long pile by feeding more yarn, allowing for a thick fabric without using thick yarns. This is Iwaki Textile's proud brushed lining fabric, which has been used for outerwear of overseas outdoor brands and is both lightweight and excellent for warmth.
We then applied Toyosonko's "100-Year Brushing" (details below) to the long-pile merino wool. "100-Year Brushing," as the name suggests, is a new finishing process by Toyosonko that has garnered attention from the industry. It involves fully restoring a US-style brushing machine from about 100 years ago to reproduce the brushing techniques from the early days of sweatshirts.
This was the first attempt to combine wool and "100-Year Brushing," and it was a great success. The fluffiness of the wool was suppressed, and the fibers became densely packed, resulting in an unprecedentedly rugged wool brushed lining. This item is also recommended for bikers.