In Search of barbell object
I love a challenge. The more arcane the clothing brand, the more I wanna know. Of course, it's always a bummer when an intriguing enigma turns out to be just another ordinary never-ran.
If only every indie maker was like barbell object.
barbell object is a Japanese menswear label so lowkey that its Instagram page has remained barren since inception. No posts, no website, not even a profile picture. Only real garmentos need apply.
If you don't thrill to pick up on subtle overtures to Margiela's Hermès or brainy recontextualizations of clothing history, well, now's your chance to go off and look at something more normal.
barbell object is quite content with its limited appeal.
"It’s just about compatibility,' the anonymous Japanese designer tells me. "Instead of treating barbell object [clothing] as just another product, I’d be happy if it could be handled by people who really care about it."
Build it, they will come. And this being Japan, they do indeed come.
barbell object frequently sells out of its small-run apparel, which includes audacious shirts fitted with snap buttons, raw hems, or the occasional deep V-neck (there's the Margiela nod) and its signature carrot-cut, knee-zippered trousers.
No two items are quite alike and hardly any styles are repeated. These generous garments brashly invert organic materials, deep-dying cotton jersey until it bleeds sulfur or framing delicate silk with sporty polyester piping and mesh pockets.
Conventional clothes are rethought from the ground up: a chunky cowichan handknit by Canadian company Kanata is reborn as a vareuse driver's knit, chore coats are mutated into robes or leather jackets, the cuffs and hems of knit sweaters are pulled taffylike until they're thrice the size that they once were.
"I try to make things that are delicate but don’t look delicate," says the designer. "When those ideas come together and I actually want to wear it myself, that’s when it feels right. I’m not comfortable selling something I wouldn’t want myself. I just go with what feels right to me."
This sort of pragmatism even underpins the cut of barbell object's clothes, which tend towards the loose.
"A lot of the designs come from insecurities that come with aging, like gaining weight or not being able to lift your shoulders, in a positive way," he says. "I try to turn those issues into clear, easy-to-understand design features. That’s kind of become the brand’s signature." Not just clothes you can wear forever because of the inherent quality, but clothes you can wear forever because they were born for aging bodies.
Even the brand's name was born of a simple desire to "give off a strong vibe." barbell + object. Nothing more to it than that.
And nothing as it seems. But only if you have the wherewithal to seek out these garments that barbell object describes as "無口で、野性味ある服," or "silent, wild clothes."
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