The Japanese town of Kojima is all about denim.
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The main road is named Jeans Street, pairs of jeans flap like flags overhead, the drinks vending machines at the railway station are plastered with the image of jeans, and the roads are painted blue, with the lines at the edges pink and white, the trademark colours of the seams in made-in-Kojima jeans.
With some 40 jeans manufacturers and stores, including denim-themed cafes, the area in Okayama prefecture, southwest Japan, draws about 100,000 visitors a year, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization.
Japanese jeans tend to be high-end, dark and durable. Although a tiny part of the global jeans market, they have carved out a niche with a reputation for craftsmanship. Kojima gave birth to popular brands like Big John, with roots dating to the 1940s, and now supplies international fashion brands, including Gucci.
“The Japanese industry has established a way of looking at denim from a much more connoisseurship and collecting approach” than a mass-marketing one, says Emma McClendon, assistant professor of fashion studies at St. John’s University in New York.
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