Blue Dragon Embroidered Jacket 'Seiran'

A blue dragon and a white tiger across the back of a black flight jacket

The dragon on the back of this bomber is blue, which is rare, with a red mane and red whiskers, and it is meeting a white tiger with black stripes among cherry blossom in pink and white, the two rivals of the tattoo tradition drawn in full colour on matte black nylon. On the left chest, a small embroidered script, the maker's mark of the design. The jacket is a flight jacket: black nylon, black ribbing, a ring-pull zip, a zipped pocket on the left sleeve.

It is the bomber with the most colour on it, and the matte black makes the blue of the dragon read like enamel.

The name, Seiran, is the blue storm, the dragon in its colour, and the tiger is the thing in its way.

The animals are embroidered, not printed, in satin stitch with the blue kept saturated and the white of the tiger kept bright. The body is a matte nylon blend with a light quilted lining, the cloth of a flight jacket rather than a souvenir one, with ribbed knit at the collar, cuffs and hem, a metal zip, a slash pocket at each hip and a zipped pocket on the left sleeve. It washes cold, inside out, and dries flat.

Wear it over a white tee and white trousers, as in the photograph, or over black with black jeans. It goes with blue, with grey, and with nothing else patterned.

From across a street it is a black bomber with a blue-and-white shape on the back. From close the dragon has every scale in two blues and its mane in red, the tiger every stripe, and the blossom every petal. It is the sukajan for someone who wants the dragon in a colour it is not usually drawn in.

A flight jacket differs from a satin sukajan in the cloth and the collar: the nylon is matte and takes the weather, and the ribbing is plain and closes at the neck. It is cut a little slimmer, so a knit goes under it in the cold.

The script on the chest is small and embroidered in white cursive where a squadron name would go; it is the mark the design carries and it is the only text on the jacket. The ribbing is plain black and the ring-pull is brass.

Sizes run from S to 3XL. It is cut to Asian sizing and runs small, so take one size up from your usual. Between two sizes, take the larger.