How Japan’s coveted jeans are made

You could call it an antidote to fast fashion: Japanese jeans, hand-dyed with natural indigo and woven on a clattering vintage loom, are then sold at a premium price to denim connoisseurs worldwide. Unlike their mass-produced cousins, the sturdy garments are the Made in the small Momotaro Jeans factory in southwest Japan, they are designed to last for decades and come with a lifetime repair guarantee.

On location, Yoshiharu Okamoto carefully dips cotton threads into a vat of deep blue liquid, which stains his hands and nails as he repeats the process. The cotton is imported from Zimbabwe, but the natural indigo used is harvested in Japan – its color is much richer than that of synthetic imitations, according to Okamoto. He calls it a “time-consuming and costly” method that was commonly used to dye kimonos in the Edo period from the 17th to 19th centuries.

Momotaro Jeans was founded in 2006 by Japan Blue, one of a few dozen denim producers in the coastal city of Kojima known for their quality craftsmanship.

“We are very strict in all aspects of manufacturing,” Masataka Suzuki, president of Japan Blue, told AFP. This includes “whether the sewing is done correctly and whether the color is beautiful,” which involves local craftsmen with traditional skills makes essential.

However, their efforts come at a price. A standard pair of Momotaro jeans retails for around 30,000 yen (around 180 euros), while a pair of jeans with silk content 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 (about 1,225 euros).

Following in the footsteps of popular Japanese high-end denim brands such as Evisu from Osaka and Sugar Cane from Tokyo, interest in Japan Blue is also growing among customers from abroad. It now accounts for 40 percent of retail sales, and the company recently opened its sixth Kyoto store, aimed at wealthy tourists.

Niche reputation

Denim manufacturing flourished from the 1960s in Kojima, which has a long history of cotton cultivation and textile manufacturing. In the Edo period, the city produced woven cords that samurai used to wrap sword hilts. She then switched to making split-toe “Tabi” socks and later school uniforms.

Today, Kojima denim is used by international luxury fashion brands. The market for Japanese jeans “has been growing over the last 10 to 15 years,” said Michael Pendlebury, a tailor who runs a repair shop in Britain called The Denim Doctor. Although revered by denim lovers in Western countries, they are “not entirely affordable for most” and have a more “niche” reputation, Pendlebury said.

“Mass-produced denim brands like Levis, Diesel and Wrangler are the biggest and most widely worn, but the highest quality, in my opinion, is still Japanese,” he said, adding that the weak yen and a tourism boom are slowing denim sales could boost Japanese production.

Momotaro Jeans is named after a folk hero in Okayama, where Kojima is located. It is part of the larger denim-producing Sanbi area, which includes Hiroshima.

Another factor that makes brands like Momotaro Jeans peculiar – and expensive – is the use of very noisy old shuttle looms that have only a quarter of the power of the latest factory looms. They often break down, but the only people who know how to repair the machines are in their 70s, said Shigeru Uchida, a weaver at Momotaro. The brand uses a handful of shuttle looms manufactured in the 1980s by a company owned by Toyota.

“There are only a few of them left in Japan” because they are no longer manufactured, said Uchida, 78, as he walked between the machines to detect unusual noises that could indicate a breakdown. Despite the complexity, he says her material is worth it. “The texture is very smooth to the touch… and when made into jeans, it lasts quite a long time,” Uchida said.

Suzuki says Momotaro Jeans is a “sustainable” choice because “we take responsibility for the repair no matter when you bring it to us.” “When people spend a lot of time in their jeans, the path of their life is left on the clothes,” depending on how they wear or wash them and even where they live, Suzuki said. “We want to preserve such a mark as long as possible .” (AFP)