In all honesty, I’m a tad distracted this morning. I’m not one to impatiently wait in front of my laptop on a ‘drop day’. I think the last time I was counting down till the clock struck 11 in the morning, before manically refreshing my browser, was when Nan Goldin teamed up with Supreme back in March of 2018. Two years on and a mere two days after April Fool’s Day, I’m prepared to put my clown costume on as I really think I’m going to win big at this week’s Palace drop. Though this isn’t any old Palace drop. The London born-and-bred skatewear brand has teamed up with Japanese raw denim-wear specialists Evisu. You know Evisu right? Those jeans everyone was wearing in the 1990s with a squiggle on the back that looked like a slanted M? Well, the boys at Palace sure do, producing a selection of hoodies, jumpers, tees, totes, and of course, printed denim, that merges Evisu’s infamous motif with a co-branded Palace logo. The collab even sees the latter’s tri-ferg emblem get the Evisu treatment, stamped on a selection of t-shirts that will fly off the e-shelves in a matter of minutes. If you’re lucky enough to cop a piece from the collection, get to know a bit more about Evisu whilst you (impatiently) wait for your order to arrive:
1. The ‘M’ motif is in actual fact a seagull, which translates to ‘kamome’ in Japanese
2. When founder Hidehiko Yamane launched the brand in Osaka, Japan back in 1993, the initial production line only allowed around 14 pairs of jeans to be produced each day – with Yamane hand-painting the kamome onto each pair.
3. Yamane set up the brand after he quit his job as a traditional tailor. He was dissatisfied with how thin mass-produced jeans were being made and wanted to pursue reproducing denim that was as strong as the vintage pieces in his own wardrobe.
4. The name Evisu derives from ‘Ebisu’, the Japanese folk god of money who is usually portrayed with a fishing rod, fishing and money reportedly being two of Yamane’s favourite attributes to life.
4. A depiction of Ebisu can be pictured inside the collection, seen within Palace’s tri-ferg emblem on a selection of t-shirts.
5. Each piece of original Evisu denim was indigo dyed via vintage loop dying machines that pumped a cotton yard through a royal blue dye, before travelling to the roof of the Evisu factory to allow the colour to oxidise.
6. Yamane’s devotion to crafting the best quality raw denim meant he sourced machinery that hadn’t been used for over 40 years, such as his shuttle looms, giving Evisu jeans a similar treatment to a sound quality vintage pair.
7. Yamane went on to release multiple Evisu subsidiary lines that included tailoring, fishing and golfing specific-labels. In 1999, a womenswear line Evisu Donna solidified Evisu has a fully-fledged brand.
8. During the late 1990s, at the peak of Evisu hysteria, the brand had 65 stores in Japan alone.
9. Evisu has been namedropped in numerous rap songs by everyone from the likes of Lil’ Wayne and The Game, to Beyoncé and Jay-Z on their joint effort Apeshit back in 2018.
10. After reports of tax evasion back in 2006, Evisu re-launched in 2009 under the creative direction of Scott Morrison. Since, the brand has collaborated with the likes of Playboy, Champion, the Keith Haring Foundation, and have even had their own Bearbrick.
The Palace x Evisu collection is available online now.
