The beauty of a mud-dyed Champion sweater is that it's simply wrong. The perfect retro sportswear pullover is soft and nice, something you could actually imagine being worn for workouts a half-century ago. Dipping it in mud until its surface resembles something like, well, mud would seem to defeat the purpose.

And that's exactly the appeal.

I am inextricably drawn towards anything that elevates the ordinary into something special. This is the entire framework behind our mantra of "good clothes" you know: transforming the normal into the beautiful. There's also a dab of Duchamp at play, especially when someone like Sashiko Gals is out here treating mass-produced sneakers like art.

Dipping a Champion sweater in mud is the exact kind of contradiction I love.

And this ain't your average mud. This is the historic dorozome mud-dye of Japan's Amami Oshima island, an ancient technique that makes quite literally everything look cool.

And I especially appreciate that the two styles of Champion shirt that received the treatment were also part of Champion Japan's Made in America program, so you have a real East-meets-West moment, if you'll excuse the cliche. (although Champion Japan is domestically operated by apparel giant Itochu.)

Around the same time as these tasty T-shirt contradictions, the Hiroshi Fujiwara co-helmed project Various Artists delivered a quartet of specially treated Champion sweats sewn to the specifications of vintage models and specially dyed to look the part. Again, artisanal approach meets ordinary object. I love it.

I don't even love those old-school Champion sweats — too narrow for my tastes — but I do appreciate the fastidiousness in taking a plain object to the next level.

It's a matter of taste, of identifying something good and going the extra mile to make it that much better. No complications, just good clothes.

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