一 · From Barcelona
Ichi Toe is a Spanish sock company. Each pair is knit in Pineda de Mar, fifty kilometres up the coast from Barcelona, on the same Lonati 200-needle frames the Italian luxury houses use. Each ankle carries a small intarsia scene rooted in something we noticed about contemporary Japan.
Overtourism in Kyoto. The grammar of apology. The seven days of sakura. The campaign called #KuToo. The architecture of the konbini lunch. We are not Japanese — we are Spanish. Spain has loved Japan from a polite distance since 1614, when the Keichō Embassy arrived in Coria del Río and seven hundred families took the surname Japón. These are our notes from that distance, knit not printed.
Five motifs · Knit in Barcelona
T-01
A small figure mid-dive into a bowl of ramen.
Drawn from the visible strain of overtourism in Kyoto, Hakone, Nara. Residents post signs asking visitors not to grab maiko or block alleys for selfies. The diver is the moment before someone treats a place as a backdrop.
Knit in Barcelona · 200-needle Lonati · Organic cotton · three-colour intarsia · €32
T-02
A salaryman folded ninety degrees forward, holding it.
In the Japanese workplace the depth of the bow is the apology, not the words. The shallowest is greeting; the lowest, dogeza, is performed only for grave matters. The bow we knit sits between the two — a man apologising for something we cannot quite name.
Knit in Barcelona · 200-needle Lonati · Organic cotton · three-colour intarsia · €32
T-03
A man in a suit watching a single cherry petal fall.
Mono no aware — the gentle sadness at the impermanence of things — is built into the Japanese calendar. Sakura bloom for seven days; offices schedule hanami lunches by the hour. The watcher is not idling. He is on the clock.
Knit in Barcelona · 200-needle Lonati · Organic cotton · four-colour intarsia · €32
T-04
A pair of black pumps, kicked off at the end of the day.
In January 2019, the actress Yumi Ishikawa tweeted that her part-time job at a funeral parlour required her to stand for eight hours in five-to-seven-centimetre heels, while male colleagues wore flats. The thread became a movement — #KuToo — a pun on kutsu (shoe), kutsū (pain), and #MeToo. Thirty thousand women signed. Japan's labour minister called the requirement 'necessary and appropriate.' These are the shoes she finally got to take off.
Knit in Barcelona · 200-needle Lonati · Organic cotton · two-colour intarsia · €32
T-05
A rice triangle with one bite taken from the corner.
A konbini onigiri is the most common meal in Japan; over four billion are sold each year. It is eaten alone, at a desk, often within ninety seconds. The bite missing from the corner is the only evidence anyone was here.
Knit in Barcelona · 200-needle Lonati · Organic cotton · three-colour intarsia · €32
一 · Where they are made
Every pair is knit in Pineda de Mar, fifty kilometres up the Mediterranean coast from Barcelona. The mill is Perfect Socks, founded 1961, now in its third generation. The frames are 200-needle Lonati — the same machinery the Italian luxury houses use, of which there are very few in Spain. The yarn is organic cotton with ECO-sustainability certificates. Lead time is ten to twelve days. We have been on the floor; we will be on the floor again.