Iron Heart

Iron Heart

The link

Iron Heart (UK site)

Iron Heart (Japanese site)

IH-527J Indigo Rider’s Jacket

What it is

Iron Heart is a Japanese denim manufacturer founded by Shinichi Haraki. Iron Heart UK is the UK based Global distributor, founded by Giles Padmore after convincing Haraki-san he really should sell his clothing outside of Japan. Iron Heart mainly does denim, typically with a motorcycle aesthetic.

What it means to me

I found Iron Heart when I first dove into the “raw” and “selvedge” denim scene, which happened as a byproduct of reading William Gibson’s modern work (they’re great; more on that in a different blog post). For the uninitiated: “Raw” denim hasn’t had it color set yet, and therefore either stains like all hell, or makes beautiful fades, depending on your perspective. “Selvedge” denim uses cloth woven as one solid piece,  which makes for stronger construction but uses more fabric per garment.

Iron Heart make really, really solid clothes. I have treated myself to the IH-527J “Café Racer” jacket in blue (the third link), and the quality is fantastic. It’s stiff, tough, and feels indestructible, even a year later. I’ve had a similar jacket start falling apart immediately – buttons, seams, the zipper, everything sort of disintegrated. This one, though, holds up. It’s even got chunky YKK zippers in the sleeves that are really satisfying to zip up. Also for the uninitiated: YKK is where it’s at, zipper-wise.

Also, the jacket looks good. It looks good in general and it looks good on me, and when I have it on I even believe the last part. Lots of Iron Heart clothing has this stripped down style to it: there are bits and pieces only if they’re useful. I suppose this minimalism also makes them more difficult to break.

Finally, the UK company where I ordered is really nice. They have free shipping for purchases over 200 euros (…you will probably spend more…), and they contacted me to make sure the fit was correct when they saw I was a first time customer. Iron Heart produces one of the very few newsletters that I don’t mind receiving, and their enthusiasm for ‘good products’ is infectious.

I was going to write that “it’s a shame that these garments are so expensive”, but it really isn’t. Iron Heart makes quality clothing, and charges you the price of making quality clothing. If it were cheaper, it would be less good. What you’re confronted with is reality, namely that quality has a price.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned as a consumer it’s that you should buy the thing you want, not the thing that’s cheapest or most convenient. Not buying anything for a long while is better than buying a knock-off that’s ‘just as good’ – because it won’t be ‘just as good’. More and more my purchases shift to ‘buy it for life’ style items: you make one well thought out expensive purchase and save yourself many cheap replacements over the years. On a cost per year basis, you’re actually better off! As an unexpected result, I haven’t spent any money on actual Iron Heart jeans yet: I’m nervous about the fact that I can’t try them on and I tend to destroy jeans, so I’m afraid I wouldn’t get enough enjoyment out of them for the price.

For jackets though? I would never want another one. And thanks to the build quality, I won’t have to, either.