Jawa Cloak 2
Wolff
TABLE OF CONTENTS
The fabric Jawa Cloak was usually released with the following combinations of colour to figure:
Brown fabric:
There are 5 main variations plus subvariants. Subvariants do exist and may not all be documented. The cloaks can vary greatly within the output of a single factory. Small differences in the size of a hood, reversed fabrics, a range of stitch colours all the results of loose production quality in a busy Asian factory in the late 70’s and early 80’s.
The guide to the early Jawa Vinyl Capes can be found here:
*Coming soon
The differences between M1, M2, M3, M4 and M5 are the way they are sewn and the material they are made off.
Kader finished making their capes with sewing the last seam to either of the sides. The early ones (12-bk) can additionally come with a sewn in paper tag with printed “Hong Kong” on it.
Late ones from Kader China are made out of a much smoother material and are therefore easy to distinguish.
Unitoy went with making the last seam to the middle. As both, Kader and Unitoy used similar fabrics, this is the best way to tell them apart.
POCH has mostly used Unitoy capes, but most likely also made their own capes out of a much rougher material with much more excess material and also sometimes missing the front seam to the hood.
Lili Ledy was focused on another material and a total different way of cutting and sewing those. There is two main subvariants: The attached (sewn on) hood and the infamous removable hood.
Above I tried to make an overview on hood sizes . These can vary and categorizing them is not easy, because the transitions are fluent.
Kader has mainly three hood sizes: Large, medium and small. The large hoods are more likely to be early and the small hoods are more likely to be later production. This can be verified with the later Kader China run, because those all came with small hoods.
Unitoy seems to only have appeared with large and medium sized hoods.
POCH mostly used Unitoy cloaks , but also seems to have made some on their own. The material is a bit rougher, and the hood can be described most of the time as medium. The specimen shown above is without front seam to the hood, and that’s why it appears a bit larger.
Lili Ledy always worked with small hoods on attached and removable hoods.
The last overview is about the most common stitch colours. Overall the different factories categorized in M1, M2, M3, M4 and M5 used different threads over the time to sew the cloaks together. Also these went through different sewing stations in the factories resulting in multiple colours used on one cloak.
Kader had the only thread colour which matches the fabric colour perfectly (dark brown). In this case it was used together with the paper HK tag, and therefore it seems to be a very early thread colour. The green stitch also stands out on Kader as unique use. The pale thread on Kader is often referred to as “white stitch”, but in my opinion isn’t pure white an still has colour left on it.
Kader China seems to only have used two main stitch colours: Dark grey and reddish brown.
Unitoy also has a variety of thread colours used. Deep purple is only one of the sought after variants on this one. The white stitch represented here is a bleached cloak in my opinion. It seems obvious because the whole cloak material is much lighter as well.
POCH mostly used dark reddish brown mixed with dark green (inside of the hood).
Lili Ledy only worked with beige, brown and dark brown (not pictured) threads. The thread colour is consistent over the whole cloaks. This might lead to only one sewing station making the whole cloak (compared to the factories above).
M1 was produced by KADER in Hong Kong. They are made out of a rough textured fabric with large, medium or small sized hoods. KADER finished making their capes with sewing the last seam to either of the sides (left or right). The stitch colours can vary a lot, also within one cloak. Theoretically all stitch colours can appear in combination with all hood sizes.
The following large hood versions are known:
- Dark Brown Stitch/HK Tag
- Brown Stitch
- Reddish Brown Stitch
- Green Stitch
The following medium hood versions are known:
- Reddish Brown Stitch
- Light Purple Stitch
The following small hood versions are known:
- Light Brown Stitch
- Light Purple Stitch
- Pale Stitch
M2 was produced by KADER in CHINA. They are made out of a smooth and stretchy polyester cotton with small hoods and shorter arm length compared to M1.
The following small hood versions are known:
- Dark Grey Stitch
- Reddish Brown Stitch
M3 was produced by UNITOY in Hong Kong. They are made out of a rough textured fabric with large, medium or small sized hoods. This cloak is found occasionally with the material reversed inside-out, exposing a ribbed texture (factory error). UNITOY finished the cloaks with the last seam to the middle. The stitch colours can vary a lot, also within one cloak. Theoretically all stitch colours can appear in combination with all hood sizes.
The following large hood versions are known:
- Reddish Brown Stitch
- Dark Grey Stitch (inside-out ribbed texture)
The following medium hood versions are known:
- Brown Stitch
- Light Brown Stitch
- Purple Stitch
- Light Grey Stitch
- White Stitch (discolored)
M4 was assumingly produced by POCH in Spain. They are made out of an even rougher textured fabric compared to M1 and M3. The hoods are medium sized and the stitch colour usually is a mixture of dark reddish brown and darkgreen (inside hood). The front seam line to hood can be missing on those. Like UNITOY these cloaks are finished with the last seam to the middle and can have much excess material inside.
The following medium hood versions are known:
- Dark Reddish Brown Stitch
M5 was produced by LILI LEDY in Mexico. These are made out of a more heavy cotton material in lighter colour compared to all other versions above. They are most commonly found with a seperately made (removable) small hood, but also exist with a sewn one (attached) hood. Lili Ledy only worked with beige, brown and dark brown (not pictured) threads.
The following small hood versions are known:
- Brown Stitch/removable hood
- Beige Stitch/removable hood
- Brown Stitch/attached hood
