Up for sale here is a shirt from Mountain Research, one of those cult labels that doesn’t get the exposure it deserves outside of Japan. With Mountain Research you essentially have the combination of a very forward-thinking punk aesthetic with more traditional outdoor wear. Kobayashi and Mountain Research have a lot of similarities with Undercover actually, where they’ve both got a pretty strong punk influence that they often apply. The idea here is to tweak classic outdoors wear to a more modern fit, often with interesting details and quality materials.
This shirt comes from the spring-summer 2017 collection. It is called the “Big Animal Polo L/S” as you can see on the label. Fabric is a sort of velvety terrycloth kind of material, listed as 76% cotton, 24% polyester on the label. This gives the material a bit more weight than you would normally find with a polo, making it a good fall-winter-spring piece in my opinion. Another thing to note is that this is labeled “big” for a reason. Fit is oversized and relaxed, where this can easily accommodate most sizes up to an XL comfortably.
As the name of the shirt implies, there are indeed animals included. Various animals are embroidered onto the front of the shirt, normally where you would see a brand logo. Collar has red and white piping, left arm has a nicely asymmetric white stripe, and interior has some additional piping in red and the usual array of Mountain Research tags.
Like many of these smaller Japanese labels, Mountain Research produces in very limited quantities (they only have one shop in a residential Tokyo neighborhood). This particular model is now long gone. Japanese retail was around $165. Availability is even more limited outside of Japan, and it definitely would have run quite a bit more if you could find it.
Size is labeled a medium, but as noted fits oversized. I measure the chest at 25”, shoulders at 18.5”, length at 30” in front and 32” in back, both from the base of the neck, and sleeves at 24” from the shoulder. The shirt comes in lightly used, good shape with no holes tears or stains. Made in Japan.
Shipping from Japan to anywhere will be $24.