This Standard & Strange Wakayama Loopwheel Tee is the Staple Every Man Needs

By Elliot Nash - News

Published: 25 Feb 2026

Readtime: 4 min

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Some T-shirts try to reinvent the wheel. This one just slows it down. Standard & Strange has released its Spring Summer 2026 delivery of Wakayama loopwheel tees, led by a new colour: Klein Blue.

Klein Blue lands loud. Clean. Electric. You don’t need to style around this colour. It carries the look on its own.

Wakayama special loopwheel tee7 — Klein Blue worn tucked, highlighting the clean drape and straight hang. | Image: Supplied

Built on a Century of Knitwear

The silhouette isn’t new, just refined over years of sampling. The cut runs slightly longer and wider, relaxed through the chest with comfortably broad shoulders. It gives you room without looking oversized, and the extra length means it doesn’t ride up when you move. It works tucked into tailored trousers or worn loose with denim. Easy either way.

The fabric is knit in Wakayama, Japan, home to the two remaining loopwheel mills. These machines run at roughly one metre per hour, almost ten times slower than modern circular knitting machines. Instead of dragging fabric through rollers under tension, loopwheel frames rely largely on gravity to form the knit. The yarn feeds stay exposed. Operators monitor every metre to keep the tension consistent. It’s a slower, more hands-on process from start to finish.

Because the fabric is knit slowly without being pulled tight through rollers, it keeps its shape better over time. The fibres aren’t stretched and stressed during production, so the jersey relaxes evenly. It doesn’t torque at the side seams. It doesn’t warp after washing. It hangs straight. Most modern cotton jersey is produced quickly under tension, which can introduce twist and movement once the fabric settles. This avoids that.

Wakayama special loopwheel tee27 — Seamless loopwheel bodies stacked before cutting and finishing. | Image: Supplied

Wakayama special loopwheel tee13 — Slow-knit loopwheel fabric stacked at the mill in Wakayama, Japan. | Image: Supplied

Wakayama special loopwheel tee16 — Century-old belt-driven machinery still running inside the Wakayama mill. | Image: Supplied

Wakayama special loopwheel tee15 — Close-up of loopwheel knitting in progress, where gravity does most of the work. | Image: Supplied

Wakayama special loopwheel tee20 — Open yarn feeds spanning the factory floor in Wakayama, Japan. | Image: Supplied

Wakayama special loopwheel tee23 — Finished loopwheel fabric collecting beneath the knitting frame. | Image: Supplied

The super long staple cotton and pre-shrunk finish are there for one reason. So the shirt fits the same after ten washes as it did on day one. Longer cotton fibres mean the yarn is stronger and more stable, which helps the fabric hold its structure instead of loosening and thinning out over time. The pre-shrunk finish reduces the usual post-wash movement, so the length and shape stay consistent.

It’s the kind of T-shirt you buy when you’re done replacing the same one every year. Not because it’s precious, but because it holds up. The collar keeps its shape. The body stays straight. You don’t pull it out of the wash and realise it fits differently. It becomes a reliable part of the rotation instead of something you’re constantly replacing.

Loopwheel machines have been running in Japan since 1909. Today, only two mills in Wakayama still operate them. That’s over a century of Japanese knitwear history baked into every metre of fabric. Now it just happens to come in Klein Blue.