Remember browsing the Superfuture board looking for raw denim recommendations? Outside of the A.P.C. fan-fiction that seemed to populate every thread and before there were more Japanese denim brands available in-stores than you could poke a stick at... 45R continually popped up in every thread as the end of the line: the best pair of jeans your money could buy.
Now that the fanfare over blue jeans has subsided, and the normcore wave has crashed on the shore into a smattering of other cores that we don’t care about at all, there’s little to no press about 45R to be found. Yet Yasumi Inoue has been doing the same thing this whole time (since she started in 1977): making fucking awesome clothing.Â
Canberra, Australia’s capital city, is often touted as city living with country benefits. Perhaps that’s what draws me into 45R’s aesthetic so: there’s an undeniable metropolitan aspect matched to something you’d find beaten and battered on a fisherman hauling line in the contested waters of the South China Sea. This fit here has it all: the cozy fleece that would surely serve a practical purpose out in the bush; or in my case, the outback after the sun goes down-- perfectly colour matched all the way through with the subtle colour palette that you can find running through every single one of 45R’s collections. Their stores are like little temples or sanctuaries on busy shopping streets (the Marais store in Paris, especially so)-- where i’m served tea while ogling at speckled tweed.
And, after it all... the denim is still top of the line.
