True Blue Tradition: How Japan’s Coveted Jeans Are Made

Japanese jeans are hand-woven with natural indigo, then sold to a premium to world-renowned denim purveyors, and then finished in a hurry.

The durable garments produced in the small Momotaro Jeans factory in southwest Japan are designed to last for a lifetime and come with a lifetime repair warranty.

Yoshiharu Okamoto repeats the process while submerging cotton strings in a tub of deep blue liquid. The result is stains on his hands and nails.

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Although the cotton is imported from Zimbabwe, Okamoto claims that the natural indigo used is harvested in Japan, where it is much more vibrant than synthetic imitations.

He calls it a “time-consuming and costly” method, commonly used to dye kimonos in the 17th-19th century Edo period.

One of the few dozen denim producers in the seaside town of Kojima, Japan Blue, founded Momotaro Jeans in 2006 and is renowned for its handcrafted craftsmanship.

“We’re very strict about all aspects of manufacturing”, Japan Blue’s president Masataka Suzuki told AFP.

That includes “whether the sewing is done properly, and whether the dye is beautiful”, making local craftspeople with traditional manufacturing skills indispensable.

Their efforts do not come cheap, however. A standard pair of Momotaro Jeans retails for around 30, 000 yen ($200) while a silk-blend pair costs 60, 000 yen.

The brand’s most expensive offering, woven by hand on a wooden machine converted from a luxury kimono loom, has a price tag of over 200, 000 yen.

Interest in Japan Blue is rising among foreigners, following in the footsteps of well-known high-end Japanese denim retailers Sugar Cane and Evisu from Osaka.

The company recently opened its sixth Kyoto store in a bid to attract overpriced tourists, and they now account for 40% of retail sales.

‘ Niche ‘ reputation

Denim-making flourished from the 1960s in Kojima, which has a long history of cotton-growing and textile-making.

In the Edo period, the town produced woven cords for samurai to bind sword handles. It then switched to producing split-toe “tabi” socks and, later, school uniforms.

International luxury fashion houses are now using denim from Kojima.

The market for Japanese jeans “has grown in the last 10 to 15 years”, said Michael Pendlebury, a tailor operating a repair shop in Britain called The Denim Doctor.

Although revered by denim aficionados in Western countries, they remain “not quite affordable for most” with something of a “niche” reputation, Pendlebury said.

“Mass-produced denim brands like Levis, Diesel and Wrangler are the largest, and more worn, but the highest quality is still Japanese in my opinion”, he said, adding that the weak yen and a tourism boom could boost sales of made-in-Japan jeans.

Momotaro Jeans is named after a folklore hero in Okayama, where Kojima is located. It’s part of the wider denim-producing Sanbi area, which also includes Hiroshima.

The use of very noisy, overheated, old shuttle-weaving machines, which only have a quarter of the production of the most recent factory looms, is another factor that makes brands like Momotaro Jeans idiosyncratic and expensive.

They frequently malfunction, but only those in their 70s or older are able to repair them, according to Momotaro weaving craftsman Shigeru Uchida.

A Toyota-owned company produced a number of shuttle looms in the 1980s for the brand.

The 78-year-old Uchida, who is moving between the machines to detect unusual sounds that might indicate a breakdown, said, “There are only a few of them in Japan right now.”

Despite the complexities, he says their fabric makes it worth it.

“The texture is very smooth to the touch… and when made into jeans, it lasts quite a long time”, Uchida said.

Momotaro Jeans, according to Suzuki, is a “sustainable” option because “we will take responsibility for fixing it wherever you bring it to us.”

According to Suzuki, “people leave their lives on the clothes when they spend a lot of time in their jeans,” depending on how they wash them or wear them or even where they reside.

“We want to preserve such a mark as long as possible”.

Source: Channels TV