Wakayama Daibakusho Kanemasa Daibakusho / Dokuritsudoppo (Sweatshirt)

Future thread / "Saikuru Cotton®" adopted
KANEMASA is a circular knitting factory specializing in high gauge. They excel at creating fabrics with a firm texture knitted at high density, referred to as "super-dense," and possess the技术 to produce a wide range of items from shirts to coats, which are typically woven items. Their original brand "KANEMASA PHIL.", launched in 2021, has received high acclaim, including winning the Tokyo Fashion Award 2025.
──Mr. Hyakkenya, do you always create products with a clear theme?
Hyakkenya: It's "standing." You know, there are so-called stand-up T-shirts, right? They stand on their own when placed upright. Those achieve stiffness through processing, but I wondered if it could be done through knitting alone.
──The material chosen was 100% recycled cotton, "Saikuru Cotton®".
Hyakkenya: To make it stand, you increase the fabric density, but with regular recycled cotton yarn, if you mix even 20%, the fuzz interferes, and you can't knit a fabric dense enough to stand on its own. However, "Saikuru Cotton®", even at 100%, has a quality comparable to virgin cotton, so I thought this might work.
──You felt that "Saikuru Cotton®" would stand.
Hyakkenya: Yes. However, it's difficult to achieve that as is, so I requested compact spinning. This is a yarn treatment that suppresses fuzz inward through airflow, and it's the spinning method that brings out the clearest knit. It's often used for fine-count yarns, but I think it's quite rare for thicker counts intended for casual wear.
──This is a product that challenges the limits of how densely you can knit 20-count jersey with 100% recycled yarn.
Hyakkenya: Yes. This time, I knitted it on a modified 24-gauge machine. The yarn is 20-count, but this yarn can normally only be knitted up to 18-gauge. I ran it on a 24-gauge machine, and it was groaning so much I thought the knitting machine might break. This was a project made possible by a small production run; if they asked me to make 1000 of these, it would be difficult.
──This is a product born from Wakayama Daibakusho. The T-shirt stands on its own, and the hood on the hoodie also stands up.
Hyakkenya: I believe that even with a plain jersey knit, we've never had such a dense fabric before. I'm proud that we were able to express the KANEMASA style.
──You will also be exhibiting at Expo Osaka-Kansai. Please give us a message.
Hyakkenya: Wakayama is Japan's number one cut-and-sew production area, and it's home to many factories with unique characteristics besides ours. I want people around the world to know about the Wakayama production area to protect the future of manufacturing.
The first-ever completely self-standing T-shirt & hoodie made from 100% recycled cotton leads the way for Wakayama knitwear.