Uniqlo celebrates sumo with new line of historical sumo art T-shirts【Photos】

100-year milestone brings you a way to incorporate sumo style into your wardrobe without wearing a loincloth.

As Japan’s favorite casual clothing brand, Uniqlo often collaborates with major media franchises, like with their recent Pokémon T-shirt designs that include a recharging Pikachu. But now Uniqlo is saluting a form of entertainment with even deeper roots in the country than anime and video games, as it gets set to release a series of sumo-themed shirts.

Sumo’s history stretches back centuries, but 2025 includes an important centennial celebration, as it marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Japan Sumo Association, the present-day governing body of the sport. Uniqlo’s designers went a little further back still when selecting the inspirations for the shirts’ designs, though. Thanks to sumo having long captured the public’s imagination, wrestlers and bouts were a popular motif for ukiyo-e woodblock print painters, and Uniqlo’s shirts feature artwork from three masters of the art form.

First comes a shirt covered in sketches from the most famous ukiyo-e artist of all, Katsushika Hokusai. Rather than a single painting, the artwork comes from what Hokusai called his “manga,” using the term to refer not in its modern sense of narrative comic book, but instead to a collection of miscellaneous illustrations that he made circa 1818.

The front has seven pairs of grapplers cascading down from the left shoulder, while the back has a pair of combatants drawn in larger scale.

▼ The subtle gradation to the fabric’s color gives it a weathered look that adds a bit of historical-feeling gravitas.

If you’d prefer some more color with your sumo wrestlers, Utagawa Hiroshige, another big name in ukiyo-e, also created artwork of big men wrestling.

Gracing the back of this shirt is Utagawa’s Illustration of Sumo Wrestling in the Precincts of Ekoin Temple in Ryogoku, Tokyo, painted in 1847 and depicting a bout taking place at a temple that still stands today in Tokyo, not far from the city’s Kokugikan sumo arena.

▼ The painting’s title is stitched on the shirt’s front.

Next is a portrait of Raiden Tamaeemon. Recognized as one of the greatest sumo wrestlers of all time, Born in 1767, Raiden still holds the record for the highest win ratio in sumo’s top division.

This portrait of Raiden is from Katsukawa Shuntei, a contemporary of the famed wrestler.

▼ Raiden Tamaeemon’s name appears on the back.

Finally, the front of the fourth shirt in the Uniqlo/Japan Sumo Association collaboration has a gunbai, the war fan-like baton that sumo referees hold in the ring and use to signal the winner of the match…

…while on the back you’ll find a banzuke, the traditionally formatted roster of wrestlers taking part in a sumo tournament, arranged in relation to their current rankings within the sport.

Each shirt is priced at 1,990 yen (US$12.70), and the entire lineup goes on sale at Uniqlo in late March and will be available online here.

Source: Uniqlo
Top image: Uniqlo
Insert images: Uniqlo (1, 2, 3, 4)
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