Vintage Clothing Prep School Lecture 5: Functional beauty honed through feedback from the polar regions, the classic Expedition Down Parkas known as "wearable sleeping bags."
Lecturer: Shigeru Kaneko

Let's start with the basics. In 1936, Eddie Bauer released the world's first down jacket, the "Skyliner." After the war, the Expedition Down Parka was rapidly developed and evolved by various brands from the 1950s onwards. What era was the one that "met your standards"?

The items I collect are mainly classical styles commonly known as "old" among vintage outdoor enthusiasts, but I don't really care about the era. Like workwear and military garments, I don't buy the so-called popular items that later became standard, but rather items with unique detail work, specifications, materials, and color combinations that can be used as hints or references for making elaborate clothes, and I ended up with a certain amount of variety (laughs). I use that knowledge in my current work.

So your collection is not for daily use or as a fashion statement, but is strictly for expeditions?

That's right. During and after the war, mountaineers and adventurers from all over the world aimed to reach unexplored polar regions, such as summiting the Himalayas and conducting Antarctic surveys. However, while European expedition down parkas were specifically designed for mountaineering, American parkas, as can be seen from catalogs of the time, focused on a broader definition of expedition, including Alaskan exploration and field sports such as hunting and fishing. I think that this difference in interpretation, or rather the broadness of the range, is what made it so American at the time.