The Urban Spring Collection at Kosei
“Urban Spring” is our take on spring in the city, not necessarily in a cool, business-oriented way, but in a palette that sits naturally in an urban setting and works across most everyday situations. This time in a slightly more relaxed context.
When we first introduced the collection, we mentioned how we approached fabrics and design — that while they ease us into warmer weather, they remain practical. The Irish linen we chose is not a beach-ready crumpled mess, but a heavier version of the cloth that holds its shape; our lightweight sportcoats are not flashy and work just as well during the day as they do as an extra layer in the evening; alongside shirts, there’s a strong presence of summer knitwear — so the whole collection works across both ends of the formality spectrum.
Location: Kosei
Photos: Radosław Kaźmierczak
This time, we took these pieces into a natural urban setting — Kosei, a unique spot here in our hometown of Katowice. It’s a café run by Hiro (Masahiro Hamamoto), a Japanese native who has been living in Poland for over a decade. A touch of inspiration from the Land of the Rising Sun, right in the heart of Silesia — something we’ve always had a soft spot for ourselves. We regularly reach for Japanese art on our pocket squares (this season it’s cranes from furoshiki!), Japanese denim and other casual cottons, as well as Japanese takes on Ivy style or broadly understood Amerikaji as inspiration.
There’s another connection here — Hiro is closely tied to clothing. He studied fashion design back in Tokyo, and now runs a small workshop in the back, Hiro Szyje, where he alters and reworks garments, often giving second life to used pieces, with a strong focus on denim.
Maybe we’ll come back to this story in more detail — it could make a good topic for another print issue of Everyday Classic — but **for now, though, back to the spring collection.
Tomek wore two of his favourite outfits from the recent selection, showing two perspectives — more and less formal, weekday and weekend (though the line between the two is easy to blur), in different colour combinations.
We start with navy and black. Two colours that can be tricky to combine — but when you reach for a navy that already carries a good amount of black within it, as part of the large herringbone structure, the pairing becomes as natural as it is elegant.
The texture of the trousers helps here — black linen, with its matte surface, looks entirely different from the deep, glossy black of wool. Black denim would also work well in this role, moving even closer to a safe charcoal, though still with a bit of edge.
Underneath — a white shirt, but in a matte linen-cotton seersucker; at the neck — a tie, but a black knit, with a pronounced texture that works naturally with the jacket; on top — a lightweight showerproof jacket, in case spring decides to surprise us with a bit of rain.
On the other end of the formality spectrum, there’s a look built around a jungle jacket — for now a light outerwear, and in high summer, with sleeves rolled up, a perfect overshirt.
Underneath, there are two layers — a knitted T-shirt and an unbuttoned seersucker cotton shirt, tucked into relaxed, washed denim.
A small detail — alongside selvedge denim, there’s another Japanese fabric in this outfit. The olive cotton ripstop used for the military overshirt is a modern reproduction of US Army cloth, vat-dyed to develop a natural patina over time — a nod to the original.
For Tomek, this is a very “his” kind of weekend outfit. Good even for a bike ride — though the one parked here happens to belong to Hiro — and for a day spent outdoors with the kids.
As the days get warmer, we’ll start shedding layers — but for now, let’s enjoy spring. Especially the one in the city.