Varsity Oni Happi Jacket 'Bancho'

A red oni with gold horns under varsity lettering, the happi as a college jacket

The demon on this happi coat is drawn the way an American college draws a mascot: a red oni head with gold horns and a mane of green, fangs bared, a striped red sun behind it, and lettering arched over the top in cream varsity capitals with a slogan in the same face along the hem. The whole composition is printed on the back, and split across the two fronts so it opens and closes with the coat. The sleeves are plain black.

It is the streetwear coat of the range, the one that borrows the language of a letterman jacket and puts it on a garment from a Japanese festival, and it is the one that goes with trainers.

The name, Bancho, is the gang leader of the old Japanese school stories, the tough kid with the long coat, which is roughly who the coat is drawn for.

It is printed, not embroidered or appliquéd, in flat colour with the lettering kept crisp. 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 the back is a red face and cream lettering on black, and it reads like a team. From close the horns have their rope, the hair has its curls, and the striped sun has its lines. The split design on the front reassembles when the coat is held closed.

Wear it over a white tee and white trousers, as in the photograph, or over black jeans and white trainers, which is where it belongs. Nothing else with words on it.

The collar band is flat and black and runs down between the two halves of the lettering, so the arch reads whole on the back and in two parts on the front. The coat is longer and straighter than a haori, which is the length a letterman jacket never has and this one does.

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.