You could spend hours—or days—just searching for the best plain tee. Or you could take a shortcut and go directly for a heavyweight Japanese loopwheeled. That is always a safe bet. Well, The Flat Head one is one of our favourite options in the Japanese market, not only for its impeccable construction and durability but also for its perfect fit and comfort. It's, without a doubt, one of the best T-shirts money can buy.
This Loopwheeled ("Turi-Ami") t-shirt is woven using only premium long-staple cotton in the Japanese Kanekichi Wakayama workshop, one of only two workshops in the world still keeping in operation after more than 100 years the tubular textile production machines that allow seamless garments to be made. The only tension used in the knitting process is gravity, the end result being a knitted fabric with virtually no inbuilt stress or tension. A loopwheel machine rotates at just 24 revolutions per minute, a modern knitting machine in excess of 10 times that. The result is a very soft but strong fabric and the best tee material made today.
It features a triple-stitch reinforced collar, a superior-quality detail only seen in high-end Japanese brands. That will avoid collar stretching, resulting in a built to last masterpiece that it's worth every penny.
The Flat Head is one of the benchmark Japanese repro Americana-style brands. Its founder, Mayashi Kobayashi, is known in the scene for being a die-hard fanatic of 1950s American style. Inspired by the music, motorbikes, cars, architecture of the era, and with a clear rockabilly influence, Kobayashi created in 1996 a truly authentic brand that today has some firm devotees. It stands out for the extreme quality of each one of its pieces. The brand is always very much aware of a curious philosophy that believes that a product is fully finished only after the customer has worn and moulded it to themselves.
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