STYLEETC. REINVENTED
STYLEETC. REINVENTED CLASSICS Shuttle looms assembled from different vintage looms at Studio D’Artisan, above; the meticulous stitching that is the hallmark of Kuro Denim jeans, right Work in progress: denim from Kuro factories with winding and warping contraptions and workshops with gigantic metallic colouring vats and vintage sewing machines predominate in a landscape that as far back as the 19th century was a centre of the cotton and canvas industry. Today, the workday apparel that they are purveying is, like so many other Japanese creations, dizzyingly refined and unsurprisingly feted around the world. One of the forerunners is Studio D’Artisan. Founded in 1979, the company takes great pride in offering its loyal followers selvage denim jeans made honest to the way they were in the US half a century ago. That means weaving on the old 1950s shuttle looms, which need constant maintenance, and involving artisan sewing on Union Special machines of the same era. “The cotton yarns we use are rough, irregular from top Natural indigo, left; the labour-intensive hand-dyeing process at Pure Blue Japan, right to bottom – which was how the yarn was in the early 20th century,” explains Hidehiro Nishijima of Studio D’Artisan. “To weave this uneven yarn, we stick to old shuttle looms that can run slow enough, without putting pressure on yarn, and resulting in denim which is rough and with depth.” Nishijima does admit, however, that using a state-of-the-art computer-controlled jet-air loom is much more efficient to produce a similar finish. “But, we are not making denim because it is economic or rational. We make denim because we want to explore what we can do with the art of denim-making,” he says. New purveyors also favour using old shuttle looms – most of which were made by Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, predecessor of Toyota CLOCKEISE FROM TOP LEFT: © STUDIO D’ARTISAN, © KURO (2), © PURE BLUE (2) 44 departures-international.com
STYLEETC. Aged to perfection: “20 Years” jeans by Snake and Dagger ALL IN THE DETAILS: UP CLOSE WITH A PAIR OF STRIKE GOLD JEANS As jeans age, the centre of the belt loop begins to lose colour, something serious jeans aficionados are fastidious about CLOCKWISE FROM TOP RIGHT: © STRIKE GOLD (5), © SNAKE & DAGGER (2) Snake and Dagger’s “12 Months Heavy Wear” jeans Motor – to craft the desired vintage texture. For a purveyor like Strike Gold, “a pair of jeans mirrors one’s lifestyle; it leaves the trace of your history”. According to Tohru Hamamoto, who founded the company in 2007, “a pair of jeans is one of the few garments one cherishes as it ages with wear and tear.” With this philosophy, Strike Gold’s jeans are all about “ageing”. From selecting specific cotton from Texas, Memphis or Zimbabwe and carefully calibrating the amount of tension and pressure on the yarn to weaving, sewing and washing, the entire process is designed with a single goal in mind: to create jeans that will age well. Though, of course, it is the customer who ultimately nurtures its jeans, as Hamamoto explains: “A person who is a frequent bike rider will have her jeans turn very differently in five years from a person who is often at her desk facing an LCD monitor.” But not all companies concentrate so carefully on the nurture of jeans. Pure Blue Japan, which was founded in 1997, focuses – as the name suggests – on colour, exploiting the qualities of indigo blue. With the help of trusted craftspeople, Pure Blue uses the natural indigo plant (which is not to be confused with synthetic indigo dye resembling authentic indigo). The process of dyeing with this is a timeand labour- consuming work: leaves of indigo are harvested in mid-summer from a special area in the Tokushima prefecture, then fermented for up to 100 days before it is ready to be used as dyeing pigment. After this, the cotton yarn needs to be dipped into the pigment more than 20 times, as the natural pigment doesn’t bond to the yarn quickly. In the old days this method of dyeing was often used for kimonos and other cotton garments, rendering a distinctive colour that can’t be achieved with synthetic indigo dye. What’s more, Pure Blue’s skein dyeing method, using loose thread rather than rope-dyeing, allows the pigment to penetrate the thread to the core, preventing it from fading away with wear and washing as time goes by. Pure Blue isn’t the only purveyor to preserve this historical method of dyeing. Momotaro Jeans uses natural indigo in its denim, which it supplies to high-end fashion brands. The company also crafts its own denim jeans dyed with natural indigo and hand-woven by only two women – which come with a handcrafted price tag of ¥178,500 (£1,250). The stitching on the back pocket is designed to resemble pick work in a gold mine, a Strike Gold trademark The inside reveals the beige yarn used for weft and densely woven by shuttle looms Punched-out riveted button, with steel shank and copper-coated cap A closer look at Strike Gold’s beige and blue weave, markedly thick and heavy departures-international.com 45
