KUON, SUICOKE and SASHIKO GALS unveil hand-stitched limited sandals
KUON, SUICOKE and SASHIKO GALS turn a sandal into a one-of-one object, hand-embroidered in Ōtsuchi and set at ¥132,000.
KUON, SUICOKE and SASHIKO GALS will release their hand-stitched sandal on July 18, with every pair individually embroidered in Ōtsuchi, Iwate Prefecture. The collaboration lands as a limited object built on labor rather than logo noise: SUICOKE provides the sandal platform, KUON shapes the design direction, and SASHIKO GALS completes the surface by hand, so no two pairs come out the same.
That production reality is the whole point. The price, ¥132,000, or about $820, only makes sense when the value sits in the hours of stitching and the impossibility of scale. KUON has framed the project around turning time and manual labor into value, which is a sharper proposition than the usual artisan collaboration language. Here, scarcity is not a marketing gloss. It is baked into the making, because each sandal depends on individual embroidery by artisans based in Ōtsuchi, not a repeatable machine process.
The craft language also matters because sashiko was never ornamental first. The stitching began as a practical Japanese method for reinforcing and repairing cloth, especially in northern Japan, where durability came before decoration. That history gives the sandals a different kind of authority: the white thread and dense handwork do not just signal heritage, they carry a use-based logic that has been translated into streetwear. KUON’s approach makes the sandal feel less like a souvenir of craft and more like an object where heritage, labor and design all occupy the same surface.
This is KUON’s fourth collaboration with SUICOKE, and the brand’s Sashiko Gals project was launched on March 11, 2024 as the next phase of the earlier Otsuchi Sashiko Project tied to Great East Japan Earthquake recovery. That lineage is part of the product story too. SASHIKO GALS, rooted in Ōtsuchi, has built a name on one-of-a-kind pieces that combine sashiko hand-stitching with vintage boro textures, and this sandal carries that same identity into a more immediate, summer-ready shape. In a market crowded with collaborations that borrow craft as an aesthetic, this one makes the craft itself the reason the pair exists at all.
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