A Padded Piece Constructed Cotton Vest: Everyday Wear

reduced from $80.00
ca. early twentieth century
26" x 16", 66 cm x 40.5 cm

This padded vest--which can be worn showing either of its sides--has been well-worn and well-used, as is evidenced by its surface and the stress to certain areas of cloth, especially the collar and neck areas, the topmost layer of which are threadbare.

But this is an interesting and rustic garment: it is lightly padded and is entirely hand stitched from about 20 separate pieces of cloth, so clearly this old, everyday garment was created from repurposed cloth.

The aforementioned, ragtag collar area can be altered if you see fit: the threadbare cloth is the outermost layer which is a black silk.  This can be easily removed and more than likely the indigo dyed cotton underneath it will be in much better shape than the frayed, outer, black silk.  In old Japan garments were constructed in layers this way for this reason: to protect the base cloth, protective layers were stitched on top of it, to be removed and changed and the garment wore out.

A charmingly drab quotidian garment with some very expected condition issues, this vest is still very wearable.