At the small Momotaro Jeans factory in southwest Japan, Yoshiharu Okamoto gently dips cotton threads into a vat of dark blue liquid, which colors 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 Yoshiharu Okamoto. This method, which he describes as “long and expensive”, was commonly used to dye kimonos in the Edo period of the 17th century.e in the 19th centurye centuries.
Created in 2006 by Japan Blue, Momotaro Jeans is one of dozens of jeans producing companies based in Kojima, a seaside resort renowned for the quality of its craftsmanship, far from mass-produced American jeans.
“We are very strict on all aspects of manufacturing,” Japan Blue president Masataka Suzuki told AFP. This includes “quality of sewing and dyeing,” making it essential to draw on the traditional manufacturing skills of local artisans.
Hand-woven models
This know-how comes at a cost. Momotaro’s basic jeans sell for around 30,000 yen (174 francs). And the most expensive model, hand-woven on a wooden machine converted from a luxury kimono loom, costs more than 1,100 francs. Following in the footsteps of high-end Japanese denim brands such as Evisu and Sugar Cane, interest in Japan Blue continues to grow overseas.
Exports now represent 40% of retail sales and the company recently opened its sixth store, in Kyoto, mainly aimed at wealthy tourists. Jeans manufacturing flourished starting in the 1960s in Kojima, which has a long history of cotton farming and textile manufacturing.
During the Edo period, the city produced woven cords for samurai to tie the hilts of swords. She then turned to making “tabi”, Japanese socks with the toe isolated from the other toes, and, later, school uniforms.
Japanese quality
Today, Kojima denim, a textile whose name comes from its French origin (“from Nîmes”), is used by international luxury fashion brands. The market for Japanese jeans “has grown over the last 10-15 years,” says Michael Pendlebury, a tailor who runs a repair shop in Britain called The Denim Doctor.
Although revered by jeans lovers in Western countries, they are “unaffordable for many” and have a niche reputation, Pendlebury says. “Mass-produced jeans brands like Levi’s, Diesel and Wrangler are the biggest and most popular, but in my opinion the best quality remains Japanese,” continues the Briton, who sees in the weakness of the yen and the boom in tourism an additional opportunity for these pants.
The use of old, fragile and noisy shuttle weaving machines, which have only a quarter of the capacity of state-of-the-art factory looms, also contributes to the reputation of Momotaro Jeans, whose name evokes a hero local folklore.
Numerous breakdowns
And yet! These shuttle looms made in the 1980s often break down and the only people who know how to repair them are over 70 years old, according to Shigeru Uchida, an artisan weaver at Momotaro. “There are only a few left in Japan” because they are no longer made, says Uchida, 78, walking back and forth between the machines to detect any unusual sounds.
Despite the complexity of these machines, he says their fabric is worth it: “The texture is very soft to the touch…and once made into jeans, it lasts quite a long time.”
“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, illustrates Masataka Suzuki, the president of Japan Blue.
(afp/er)
