Men's White Pleated Hakama 'Hyotan'

White pleated hakama with a burgundy front tie and gourd embroidery, the ceremonial cut

These are the hakama of the archery hall and the graduation, cut to be worn with trainers. Deep pleats fall from a wide waistband to the ankle in a white cotton, opening and closing as you walk the way a hakama's pleats do, and at the front a burgundy tie hangs in two long tails, each embroidered with a small white gourd. The legs are divided, so they are trousers, and wide enough that they read as a skirt until you move.

It is the most traditional cut in the collection and the one that most rewards being seen from behind, when the pleats swing. The tie is the ceremony; the cotton is the reason you can wear it to lunch.

The name, Hyotan, is the gourd, the good-luck charm embroidered on the tie, the bottle-shaped fruit that Japanese carried for sake and for fortune.

The gourds are embroidered, not printed. The cloth is cotton with a dry, slightly slubbed hand, chosen because pleats this deep need weight to swing and air to breathe, and cotton gives both. It washes cold, hangs, and softens with every wash.

Wear them with a white tee, as in the photograph, or with the white jinbei top from the range for something closer to the archery hall. White trainers. The tie wraps once round the waist and hangs at the front, and it should hang to the knee.

The waistband is wide and firm, so the pleats fall straight from it; the pleats are stitched down for a hand's width before they open. The legs are divided high, so the hakama walks like trousers and stands like a skirt.

From across a street they are white pleated hakama with a red tie. From close the gourds show their embroidery, the pleats show their depth, and the cotton shows its weave. They are the pair in the collection for an occasion, and for the day after it.

A hakama is worn over a top that is tucked and belted, so the waistband shows; here the band is white and wide and the tie sits over it, and the whole waist reads as one piece of construction, which on a good hakama it is.

It goes with white, with the white jinbei top, with black for contrast, and with nothing patterned. It is the piece for a photograph, and it will be asked to be in one.

Sizes run from M 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.