American workwear has always evolved in the margins — small functional tweaks, innovations, and the kind of ideas that only come from people who actually earn their living in a shirt. Few brands understood this better than Big Yank. Founded by Reliance Manufacturing Co. in the early twentieth century, Big Yank built its reputation on garments that solved real problems long before “utility” became a design trope. Their shirts were ingenious: introducing asymmetrical pockets engineered for cigarette packs and rolling papers, ventilated yokes designed for welders working in the heat, and one-piece “elbow action” cuffs that moved cleanly without catching or tearing.

Nearly a century later, those details are proof that good ideas last. Through the stewardship of Kenji Teramoto and his Tokyo-based label 35 Summers, the Big Yank archive has been preserved with rare fidelity, allowing us to study the originals down to the stitch. 

For our new collaboration, we went back into that archive and rebuilt three of their most compelling designs, each one cut in Japan with the same no-shortcuts approach that defined the original runs. The fabrics are twisted cotton jaspe and salt-and-pepper yarns; the construction is triple-needle, chainstitched, felled, and bartacked where it counts. What you get are three different answers to the same question: what does an honest work shirt look like today?