When I was a kid, I worked in a cycle helmet factory. I sat all day in a business park making straps, sticking on stickers and ultimately assembling shoddy, polystyrene headgear. It was shit. It was made all the more shitter by the fact that I shared my workspace with a ‘head’. You know, like a 60s-style bongfreak. Long matted hair, beads, rollups, biblical sandals. He irritated me by exposing his long-fingered feet all day, whining on about not having enough ‘gear’, to ‘get his head right’ and (when it was his turn on the ‘factory’ stereo) playing nothing but Nick Drake and endless prog wank about shirehorses, wizards and fucking spells. He really titted me off. He’d have been at home in one of these tops. Which makes me want to hate them. But I sort of don’t.

Yah, yah, yahhhh… I know. They look like something from a stall that sells incense sticks. And comedy Rasta wigs. And books about talking to fairies. But they’re not right… they’re by Devadurga x GO OUT. Which is a Japanese brand I’ve never heard of and a Japanese online shop that specialises in outdoorsishness. So, you know, that’s cool right? Check this brotherman…

Yeah. Banging. And this brah…

Baby looks mega-enthused to be wanging around in that. I’m not even saying I’d roll the shorts look out with these tops. I’ve got my mind hyped to blast one under an unstructured blazer. Mix in some dark chinos, maybe some dubs? What kind of brah is that? Part of him says multi-media, cyber-crimelord, the other is all about foraging for barley, praying to the old gods and fingering the earth, trying to give a tree an orgasm.

I saw that hippy dude again a few months back. He was in a shirt and tie and the whole Saruman vibe was gone. ‘Lifestyle choice’ my hole. I’m still got alt-living on lock brah. I just need to find ¥9,720 to look like you did in the 90s.