The Japanese enthusiasm for blue jeans dates back to the years after World War II, when US soldiers stationed in the country as part of the Occupation traded and sold old pairs of jeans to Japanese youth enamored of rock’n’roll, jazz, and other rebellious pop culture. The demand for these pants led to the import of Lee and Levi’s brands, but these were extremely expensive.
Fortunately, Japan already had a robust textile dyeing and weaving tradition, with Kojima one of the traditional textile centers. The Kojima-based company Maruo Clothing started to produce its own brand of jeans, but it encountered a major hurdle: Japanese equipment and traditions required fully penetrating cotton fiber with dye. By contrast, US-made jeans were only partially dyed, which allowed for fading to occur over time.
Hiroshima’s Kaihara mill produced the first fully Japanese-produced pair of denim jeans in 1967. Drawing on kimono-dyeing traditions, the company spearheaded a nationwide jeans boom, with sales rising from 7 million pairs in 1969 to 45 million pairs four years later and familiar brands such as Bison, Edwin, and Big Stone emerging.
