Up for sale here is a shirt from the Sugar Cane label, a part of the Toyo Enterprise family of labels that includes Buzz Rickson, Sun Surf, Tailor Tokyo, Indian Motorcycle, and several others. Sugar Cane themselves manufacture a lot of Mister Freedom’s collections and distribute them in Japan. Needless to say, their credentials are very strong on the vintage-inspired, workwear-influenced Japanese clothing industry.
This is a denim button down shirt from Sugar Cane’s main line. Silhouette is meant to evoke classic 1950s-60s era American work shirts. If anything, Sugar Cane have taken the classic American silhouette and elevated it considerably in terms of quality. Material is a 100% cotton medium-weight indigo dyed denim chambray. Like any quality indigo product it should develop and pleasantly fade with wear. Aside from the indigo the shirt also has selvedge lines visible on the side gussets and interior button plackets. These take considerably more expertise (and time and money) to pull off because of the intricate pattern work required.
Other details include substantial metal buttons throughout, including a branded metal button on the left chest pocket. Chest pockets have an asymmetrical formation, where the left pocket has an expansion gusset while the right pocket has a pen slot. Substantial double and triple needle chain stitch construction is used throughout, where the chain stitch runoff has been left on the side gussets.
As you can hopefully see, this shirt is very well designed with all of the bells and whistles you would hope for in a quality work shirt. If you slapped a Mister Freedom tag on it you would be hard pressed to see the difference. These shirts are manufactured in small quantities and can be very hard to track down outside of Japan.
Size is labeled a medium and fits true. I measure the chest at 21”, shoulders at 17”, length at 26.5” (meant to be worn untucked), and sleeves at 23” from the shoulder. The shirt comes in lightly used, excellent shape with no holes, tears, stains or visible fading of the indigo. Note that this is a sample according to the tag. Made in Japan.
Shipping from Japan to anywhere will be $24.