When Sneakers Become Art

New York Times

30-03-2025

On March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9 earthquake produced a devastating tsunami that swept away entire towns along the coast of northern Japan.
Otsuchi, in Iwate Prefecture, was one of them. According to official statistics, 1,271 lives were lost and more than half of the town's residential area was submerged during the disaster.
Sashiko Gals, managed by Moonshot, a Japanese company that aims to take on social issues through design, is one of the many projects that has coalesced since the tsunami struck that aims to help victims. It was named for the traditional Japanese stitching method — sashiko — that its 15 workers use to upcycle secondhand sneakers, including New Balance, Vans, Converse, Nike and even Dr. Martens. The one-of-a-kind footwear can take as long as two weeks to create, and cost 200,000 yen, or $1,332, a pair.
Since Sashiko Gals introduced its work in early 2024, the group has completed 100 pairs of sneakers, sold through stores in Tokyo and elsewhere that stock Kuon, a brand managed by Moonshot.
The wait list for the sneakers has grown so long that the group is now accepting new orders only twice a year. But Edison Chen, the Hong Kong singer and actor, has a pair, as does Takahiro Moriuchi, best known as Taka, of the Japanese band One Ok Rock.
'The magic of Sashiko Gals is in how they transform ordinary sneakers into wearable art,' Jake Silbert wrote on the Highsnobiety site in December.
'Little Stabs'
Sashiko, a word meaning 'little stabs,' is a patchwork technique akin to that used in traditional American quilting, and one of Japan's many methods of extending the life of items, such as kintsugi, the method of repairing broken items with gold, silver or other precious metals.
Melanie Uematsu, a tailor and sewing teacher in Tokyo, wrote in an email that sashiko is a simple, but effective, skill: 'Children from age 3 or 4 can do it and even elderly people who are 104 can still do it.'
Developed during the Edo Period (1603-1868), at a time when cotton products were scarce and costly, the method became popular because of its simplicity. All an artisan needs for sashiko is heavyweight cotton thread, a needle and scraps of fabric such as cotton or linen (the Sashiko Gals have been experimenting with using leather, too). Sashiko stitches can be placed in geometric patterns, such as stars or ripples, or appear just as a simple double stitch.
At Sashiko Gals, stitching is done freehand and directly on the shoe, which can be harder than stitching, say, a tablecloth. Recently, Tomiko Goto was working on New Balances decorated with white and orange stitches in linear patterns. 'The fabric of this shoe is so hard, and you need strength to thread the needle through the material and pull it out,' she said. 'Sometimes I use pliers to pull the needle out.'
Reconstruction
On a snowy February day, I took a six-hour train ride north from central Tokyo and got off at Otsuchi's little station.
The town itself was quiet, almost no one on the streets. I could see just a few rows of townhouses that were built with government support after the tsunami and a few shops. Later, I walked along the coastline and across a breakwater to Horaijima, a rocky island with a small shrine that survived the earthquake and has become a symbol of reconstruction. Yet, almost 15 years after the disaster, the town still hasn't fully recovered. 'There are no parks for children to play in and the town is full of vacant lots,' said Kaori Kurosawa, who manages Sashiko Gals on-site for Moonshot.
Sashiko Gals operates with a crew of all women, some of whom learned the skill shortly after the tsunami, through one of the programs set up at an evacuation center to keep residents busy. Over time the number of needlewomen has risen and fallen; their output has included clothing, small accessories and household items.
Moonshot became aware of the group in 2011 and supported them from the get-go. In 2024, the joint venture in sneakers was born.
'Sashiko Gals is not a brand, but a project involving artisans who have great sashiko techniques and stories to tell,' said Arata Fujiwara, the founder of Moonshot. 'We have been involved as a business, not as a charity, because we believe that long-term reconstruction assistance can only be provided through the 'business' of fashion.'
Mr. Fujiwara came up with the business's name, combining the sewing term with a label he felt matched the women's lively behavior at work. There is no Japanese translation; everyone just calls them the Sashiko Gals.
Needlework
The women primarily work from home, but occasionally get together at the business headquarters, a brown and yellow two-level townhouse in the center of Otsuchi, for stitchery sessions and tea parties. While a few of them work on sashiko full-time, others have jobs so they are just part-time.
On the day I visited the headquarters, a table in the main workroom displayed an array of pieces they had decorated with sashiko stitching, including a pair of Vans bearing the Sashiko Gals logo, the kanji character for needle; stuffed toys such as a Hello Kitty doll decorated in pink, red and floral fabrics; and clothes and baseball caps.
Atsuko Sato, one of the three needlewomen present that day, showed me a pair of Converses covered with cotton pieces in different hues of blue and accented with some purple stitching. 'This kind of fabric is very soft, so it was not that difficult to sew on,' said Ms. Sato, 66. 'But later I started working on different materials, and some of them are very hard.'
At that point, she indicated a pair of New Balance sneakers that she said had taken her colleague, Ruiko Ishii, a total of 23 hours to complete.
Ms. Ishii, 79, who was also in the workroom that day, had worked as a laboratory technician before the tsunami. 'I lost almost everything, my home, my husband,' she said. 'I was desperate. I felt the worst in my life at the time.'
She was one of the women who learned the technique at the evacuation center. 'I was not good at sewing,' she said, 'but I decided to try anyway. I was so overwhelmed by the atmosphere in the workshop. So welcoming, so loving, so calming. There, I found some hope.'
Ms. Goto, 77, said she had found sashiko work to be very calming. 'Before that, although I was watching TV, I wasn't able to hear it really,' she said, referring to how hard it was to bypass all her worries. 'But when I started sewing, I could concentrate on it and I could forget about the experience I had gone through.' While she was talking, she had been busy using a long needle with a slightly curved end to stitch a pattern with multicolored thread onto a dark blue tablecloth dyed with indigo.
The women said they did talk about how to spread the word about sashiko and ultimately perpetuate their project.
Ms. Kurosawa said the group had conducted a one-day class in sashiko at a local high school, and also held workshops for students from other parts of Japan and overseas. 'The Great East Japan Earthquake made the town of Otsuchi known to the entire world, but I think it was quickly forgotten,' she said. 'I know a lot of people survived disasters all over the world. But I hope a lot of people will learn there is a way to recover, by creating a community like this one.'
The women all agreed the group's camaraderie had been at least part of the reason that the project has endured. Ms. Goto used the Japanese word kizuna, meaning 'human connections.'
'Sharing those similar feelings with friends has helped me a lot,' she said. 'Everyone has had hardships, but without saying that out loud, they know what it feels like to go through it. That kind of strong emotions and connected feelings are very important in this project.'
Ms. Ishii agreed: 'After losing my family, I learned how crucial it is to get involved with other people and to take care of other people, because you are not alone.'