Handcrafted in Japan

Our denim is woven in Kojima, Japan’s denim capital, by master artisans with over half a century's experience in their field. Our craftsmen use traditional hand-powered shuttle looms to produce heavy strips of quality fabric. These strips emerge from the loom finished with tightly woven bands running down each side which prevent the denim from fraying, ravelling and curling. This shuttle-loom finish gives the denim what is known as a 'self-edge', or 'selvedge' finish, widely considered to be a mark of premium denim traditionally made.

Visit the workshop in Kojima, Japan

##Together with our craftsmen, we have woven a special type of denim generally reserved for very special pieces. Our cotton is harvested by hand to ensure high material purity and minimal fibre damage, and only the longest, highest quality cotton fibres are used in our denim. Using slub cotton gives our denim its distinctive faded vertical stripes known in Japan as tate-ochi, which literally translates to ‘vertical falls’, and has long been regarded as a staple of authentic vintage denim.

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##What makes them so special? A pair of jeans made to last for decades - some of the most resistant and eventually comfortable jeans out there. Denim was originally popularised in the early 20th century by American labourers who required resilient clothing that could withstand the tough working conditions they faced on the job. As denim became more popular and more widely produced, the fabric lost its working connotations. Most brands began weaving thinner denim fabrics using machinery made to facilitate mass production in order to reduce costs and increase profit margins.

We support craftsmen who choose to remain loyal to traditional production methods; craftsmen whose time-honoured skills have been honed across generations of master artisans. Our craftsmen use traditional hand-powered shuttle looms to weave thick 23oz denim in the classical style. This is what gives our denim its enduring quality, the kind of resilience an early-20th-century labourer would cherish.