Great Wave Koi Happi Coat 'Namigoi'

The great wave breaking across a black happi, a koi on the sleeve, Fuji below

The wave breaks where it should on this happi coat, low, across the hem, and the koi is where you do not expect it, on the sleeve. The great wave rises in blue and white across the lower back and both fronts, its foam reaching in fingers over a small Mount Fuji, while a large koi in dark scales swims down the right sleeve and shoulder with the spray round it, and a dragon in tonal grey coils faintly on the black above the wave. The rest is black, and the collar band is plain.

It is the coat that puts the most famous picture in Japan on a garment made for standing in a crowd, and it does it without covering the whole coat, so the wave reads as an image and not as a pattern.

The name, Namigoi, is the wave carp, the koi in the surf, which is what the sleeve shows: the fish where the water is roughest.

It is printed, not embroidered, with the wave in flat, hard-edged colour the way the woodblock printed it, and the dragon above kept faint on purpose. The cloth is polyester, firmly woven with a dry, matte hand and a clean drape, chosen because a happi is a coat for standing in a crowd in July and must stay light, hold a flat collar band and keep its print through a summer of washing. It is unlined.

The cut is the classic happi: straight through the body, falling to mid-thigh, with wide three-quarter sleeves, a flat collar band and no fastening. It hangs open over a white tee and stays open, with a slit at each side.

From across a street it is a black coat with a blue wave at the hem and a dark fish on one arm. From close the foam has every finger, the mountain has snow, and the koi has every scale. The faint dragon at the shoulder is for whoever stands closest.

Wear it over a white tee and white trousers, as in the photograph, and let the wave carry the outfit. It is the coat for the person who wants the wave and has seen it done worse.

The flat collar band is left black, as on every happi, and the print stops at it, so the coat has a frame. It is longer and straighter than a haori, and on a wave print the extra length matters: the crest has room to break before the hem cuts it off.

Sizes run from S to 5XL. It is cut to Asian sizing and runs small, so take one size up from your usual. Between two sizes, take the larger.