Needles
How Needles Repackaged Americana and Made It Better
Launched by Keizo Shimizu in 1997, Needles is many things, but it is best known for its sportswear-inspired track pants, the Rebuild series of reconstructed vintage garments, and military overtrousers. Arguably, those three pillars are the very foundations on which the brand is built, and they helped to define the Needles we know today. But when you look at them separately, it’s hard to see how they fit together – they belong to different worlds: sportswear meets vintage Americana and military uniforms. It’s only when you understand the background of Shimizu, Needles, and Nepenthes – the umbrella company under which Needles exists under – that a red thread begins to emerge.
To better understand the Japanese brand, Needles, it’s important to establish the historical context that allowed it to exist in the first place. Enamoured by all things Americana, from style to film, music to culture, Keizo Shimizu belongs to a generation of Japanese designers who are heavily inspired by the latter. From Nigo of BAPE and Human Made and Jun Takahashi of UNDERCOVER to Hiroshi Fujiwara and Hiroki Nakamura of Visvim, the list goes on and on. A complex historical relationship between the two nations contributed to this: America occupied Japan following the Second World War, between 1945 and 1952, which led to exposure to US customs and culture.
This generation of Japanese designers wanted to preserve their perception of mid-century Americana that was so deeply entrenched in their minds, and they did so through design. They recreated Fatigue jackets, referenced popular culture through graphic artwork, and hoarded thousands of vintage garments to study detail, cut, and fabric. Companies like BEAMS built business empires this way: designers would travel to the States on buying trips, visit flea markets, and travel back to Japan with as much vintage as they could: collegiate sweatshirts, slacks, Oxford shirts, and the like. It was distinctly Japanese, but still tainted by American influence.
A great appreciation exists between the two: Japanese designers and brands continue to pay homage to the Ivy era and American style. At the same time, Americans truly appreciate Japanese craftsmanship and recontextualised garments.
In 1989, Keizo Shimizu entered the picture and started Nepenthes in Tokyo – a boutique vintage shop stocking vintage and military surplus sourced from the United States – with Daiki Suzuki, the founder of Engineered Garments. After some time, Shimizu found himself visiting the States so much he relocated to Boston and New York, where the Nepenthes flagship resides today – in the Garment District. Needles became Nepenthes’ first in-house label, launched in 1997 to complement their stock, drawing on over a decade of expertise in sourcing materials and working with manufacturers. Eventually, Nepenthes became more than a stockist of American brands; it evolved into a store that managed and stocked several in-house labels, including Engineered Garments and Needles, South2 West8, and Sasquatchfabrix.
Shimizu’s personal taste and extensive knowledge of American clothing, from obscure details on workwear jackets to the best mills for knitting, sit at the centre of Needles. Western-influenced pieces, military surplus, Ivy League clothing, workwear, and sportswear serve as a revolving pool of references, reproduced faithfully and considerately. The original style is referenced, exaggerated, and combined into something less familiar – the slightly weird but wonderful world of Needles.
With that context, it helps to appreciate and understand Rebuild by Needles and its Track Series: two iconic sub-lines of the brand that complement the wider collections, nodding to sportswear and vintage. Arguably, the tracksuit is Needles’ most recognisable design, with contrast taping, unconventional colours, and an embroidered butterfly transforming an ordinary piece of athletic clothing into a fashion object, which captured the brand’s ability to move between sportswear, luxury, and subculture – tapping historic collaborators like A$AP Rocky, BEAMS, and HAVEN. In contrast, Rebuild by Needles makes the brand’s design philosophy particularly visible. Vintage garments, often flannels, military pieces, or sportswear jerseys, are cut apart and rebuilt, preserving their character and imperfections while giving them an entirely new identity and context.
A diverse catalogue of garments, visual language, and collaborators has allowed Needles to be adopted across fashion, music, skateboarding, and streetwear without drastically altering its identity to appeal to those audiences. As the wider fashion industry periodically catches up with its interests, Needles’ longevity and consistency are truly remarkable, likely attributed to its reconstruction of oversized tailoring, tracksuits, and westernwear – a vocabulary all too familiar for Shimizu’s label, but just entering other brands’ periphery.
HHV explores this through its offering of Needles for A/W ‘26, listing a mix of outerwear, knitwear, tops, and legwear styles from the brand’s diverse arsenal. Featured styles include the Travel Jacket in Harris Tweed; the iconic Mohair Cardigan; a duo of jackets and a pair of pants in collaboration with A Tribe Called Quest; the H.D. Pant in fatigue material; and more.
