Yamma Clothing: custom-made fashion with Japan’s Aizu Cotton

The fashion industry is experimenting with sustainable practices. Big retailers, such as Patagonia and Nike, are increasingly using organic and recycled materials, reducing the use of water and harmful chemicals in the production process, among other innovations. Yamma Industry Inc. is one of those players presenting us with another sustainable approach to have deeper relationships with items we own. Its collection, made of traditional cotton from the Aizu region, is custom made, with clients placing orders through popups held around the country. In doing so, Yamma closes the distance between the designer, the manufacturer, and the customers.

Proud history and Aizu cotton

Aizu is located in the mountainous part of Fukushima Prefecture, and maintains a strong local character. It was one of the most prominent clans in the north during the Edo Period, known for fierce samurai training. Aizu was later conscripted to defend the historical Tokugawa clan in the lead up to the Meiji Restoration, and punished for it when the revolutionaries took power in 1868.

Today, Aizu remains proud of its heritage and history. Visitors to Aizu still see tributes to the sacrifices it made at the dawn of the country’s modernisation, apart from enjoying hot springs and shopping for traditional crafts ranging from lacquerware to pottery.

Aizu momen (cotton) is sturdy, and is fit for enduring long winters and hot summers of the Aizu basin weather conditions. On top of that, it is even machine washable. Still, its signature stripe patterns are machine washable and do not fade quickly. Yamma imports raw cotton from the United States and spins, reels, dyes, and layers the yarns in Japan.

Custom order system reduce waste

Yamma started the special-order type of clothing business in 2009. Clients choose colors, designs, sleeve lengths, and other details from sample patterns through Yamma’s traveling pop-ups and online during the biannual ordering weeks and receive the custom-ordered clothes about six months later. Given the long wait period, Yamma’s items are designed to be timeless and classic, never going out of style and molding with clients’ changing body types as they age. Sustainability is achieved by the designers producing individual pieces with care, and customers cooperating with the process with kind understanding and patience.

Those outside Japan can also order Yamma products through periodic pop-ups, or on their online store. You can follow their Instagram or Facebook for order announcements. Anyone thinking of decluttering as a New Year resolution may try to own less and cherish more, the Yamma style.