Here at Proper, we live for those discoveries that feel almost too good to share. The ancient hardware shop that sells Monsteras for a fiver. The corner shop that somehow gets big bottles of Tsingtao flown in directly from China. Little moments you’re desperate to gatekeep, only enlightening select individuals as and when they become worthy.
Well, that’s exactly how we’ve felt about TDR for a long time now.
The Garbstore’s brilliant in-house line is low-key to the point of near-mystical (no one even knows what TDR stands for), yet consistently produces some of the best menswear on the market. Trousers cut from 1930s Japanese fabrics. Rinsed hemp denim jackets. Immaculately built selvedge workwear that somehow feels nostalgic and totally contemporary.
For SS26, TDR’s conceptual footing lands them in East London, with the brand metaphorically taking its hard-wearing textiles back to the workshop floor. A handful of much-loved carryover silhouettes (shirting, pants etc.) return, but this season opens the door to lighter, more summer-appropriate fabrics. Chief among them is a newly developed lighter-weight hemp denim, used to introduce slightly slimmer, more fitted cuts to staple denim jackets, before giving way to a host of new silhouettes, too.
Trousers remain a particular strong point for the brand. An all-new twisted seam pant enters the fold, pleated at the knee for improved mobility and finished with traditional brace-pin hardware at the waist, plus a rear-facing belt buckle for good measure. It’s indicative of everything we love about TDR: heritage-informed details that only the eagle-eyed will notice.
Once again, military influence continues to run deep. There’s a deep green update of winter’s best-selling reworked Fjord Pant, alongside slow-twisted heavy katsuragi cloth chinos. The latter nods to a fabric historically associated with Japan’s Kansai region and widely used in 1920s military uniforms.
Shirting is another focal point. There’s plenty of long-sleeve options, alongside an intriguing elbow-length Noragi mugwasher shirt – a silhouette that’s become a TDR staple – now also offered with long sleeves and finished in a striped pattern inspired by 1930s Japan.
Rounding things out, there’s the welcome return of loose-fitting Japanese linen cotton shorts, the debut of earthy-toned suede jackets for spring, and the long-awaited arrival of TDR caps – featuring excellent animal embroidery.
TDR still feels like one of those brands you only mention to your mates once they’re worthy. SS26 is full of solid silhouettes, great fabrics, and the small details that make us not want to tell anyone about it. Although that’s exactly what we’re doing right now. Oops. Thank us later.
TDR’s SS26 collection is available to purchase from The Garbstore now
