By
AFP
Revealed
December 18, 2024
Name it an antidote to quick vogue: Japanese denims hand-dyed with pure indigo and weaved on a clackety classic loom, then offered at a premium to international denim connoisseurs.
The Momotaro Denims manufacturing facility’s cotton is imported from Zimbabwe, however its pure indigo is harvested in Japan – © Philip FONG / AFP
Not like their mass-produced cousins, the robust clothes crafted on the small Momotaro Denims manufacturing facility in southwest Japan are designed to be worn for many years, and include a lifetime restore guarantee.
On web site, Yoshiharu Okamoto gently dips cotton strings into a bathtub of deep blue liquid, which stains his arms and nails as he repeats the method.
‘Area of interest’ popularity
Denim-making flourished from the Sixties in Kojima, which has an extended historical past of cotton-growing and textile-making.
Within the Edo interval, the city produced woven cords for samurai to bind sword handles. It then switched to producing split-toe “tabi” socks and, later, college uniforms.
Now denim from Kojima is utilized by worldwide luxurious vogue manufacturers.
The marketplace for Japanese denims “has grown in the last 10 to 15 years”, stated Michael Pendlebury, a tailor working a restore store in Britain referred to as The Denim Physician.
Though revered by denim aficionados in Western international locations, they continue to be “not quite affordable for most” with one thing of a “niche” popularity, Pendlebury stated.
“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 stated, including that the weak yen and a tourism increase might increase gross sales of made-in-Japan denims.
Momotaro Denims is known as after a folklore hero in Okayama, the place Kojima is situated. It is a part of the broader denim-producing Sanbi space, which additionally contains Hiroshima.
One other issue that makes manufacturers like Momotaro Denims idiosyncratic — and costly — is using very noisy previous shuttle-weaving machines, which have solely 1 / 4 of the output of the most recent manufacturing facility looms.
They usually break down, however the one individuals who know the best way to restore the machines are of their 70s or older, based on Shigeru Uchida, a weaving craftsman at Momotaro.
The model makes use of a handful of shuttle looms made within the Nineteen Eighties by an organization owned by Toyota.
“There are only a few of them in Japan now” as a result of they’re now not made, the 78-year-old Uchida stated, strolling backwards and forwards between the machines to detect uncommon sounds that would sign a breakdown.
Regardless of the complexities, he says their cloth makes it value it.
“The texture is very smooth to the touch… and when made into jeans, it lasts quite a long time,” Uchida stated.
Suzuki says Momotaro Denims is a “sustainable” alternative as a result of “no matter when you bring it to us, we will take responsibility for fixing it”.
“When people spend a lot of time in their jeans, the path of their life is left on the clothes,” relying on how they put on or wash them and even the place they stay, Suzuki stated.
“We want to preserve such a mark as long as possible.”
