Denim is a modern fabric popularly worn in garments such as jeans, a kind of work trouser which has crossed over into everyday wear and fashionable as a skintight garment by the 2010s. Japanese denim is characteristically known for its darker dyes and using one single white weft thread in the design.[1] This produces a distinctive deep blue bolt with a unique selvedge.[6] Japan became first acquainted with Denim as a form of American agricultural workwear when it began sending Issei ( first generation | 一世 ) labourers to Statesian territories and this may have lead to it being brought back by 1890 to Japan as part of Boro ( Patchwork recycling | ぼろ) Kimono.[10] Denim reached its height of trendiness in the late 20th century as a staple of Zoku youth subcultural fashions, becoming a Japanese made textile by the 21st century.
Boro Shikimono which uses indigo dyes (c1899[2017], PD) Fæ
The design of Japanese denim imitates the best quality North American designs which were left behind in Japan after WWII by western soldiers.[1] Modern Japanese designed denim heavily uses indigo dyes, whereas most denim today is dyed with synthetic indigo dye. As with all Denim fabric dyeing, Japanese Denim is divided into two categories: indigo dyeing and sulfur dyeing. Indigo dyeing producing the classic indigo blue and Sulfur dyeing producing specialty black, red, pink, purple, grey, rust, mustard, and green dyes and designs.[6] Japanese Denim is often not ripped or distressed as it is an expensive work of art, not mass manufactured garbage. When dyed, the yarns are repeatedly undergoing a sequence of dipping and oxidation—the more dips, the stronger the color of the indigo, a series of rollers that feed continuous yarns in and out of dye vats.[6]
All denim is generally made by spinning cotton fiber (sometimes silk) into yarn, and the warp yarn then dyed by either rope-dyeing or sheet dyeing. In rope dyeing, continuous yarns are gathered together into long ropes or groups of yarns – after these bundles are dyed, they must be re-beamed for weaving. In sheet dyeing, parallel yarns are laid out as a sheet, in the same order in which they will be woven; because of this, uneven circulation of dye in the dye bath can lead to side-to-side color variations in the woven cloth.[6] The weft is left white and the yarns are woven on a shuttle loom or projectile loom. The woven product is then sanforized which is a process which reduces fiber shrinkage by setting it into one shape during the production stages.[6] This gives Jeans their sturdy and yet stretchy feeling. Toyoda shuttle looms of Kojima, a subsidiary textile company of the industrial giant Toyota, are used to make Japanese Denim, which allows for greater craftmanship to show through in the final product.[1] This loom is what gives Japanese denim its higher quality selvedge which is a marker of its time consuming labour and sturdiness.
Denim Selvedge is here done in White (2018, CC4.0) Coldwrld
Historically, Denim began its life in the French city of Nîmes, where it takes its namesake from. In 1690, silk was mixed by Nimes farmers with cotton, a readily available textile in the Cevennes mountains, to create a twill weave blend of indigo yarns and white silk as their workwear.[7] It is thought that this fabric then migrated with other labourers into modern Canada as workwear by the late 1700s, where it was worn as an overall.[8] In 1872, Levi Strauss a wholesale merchant launched his overalls which popularised Denim in Statesian land by spreading the appeal of Denim workwear to other American industries.[7] From 1885 with the emigration of female labourers from Japan to the United States, the Hawaiian Japanese female population became associated with Denim as a workwear fabric which they used to make their Ahina aprons.[10] By the 1920s, Denim began to be found in Japan.[8] In the 1930s to prop up manifest destiny, more Cowboys and Indian films were being made, which Denim become a fashionable item of Americana.[9]
Denim flourished in Japan after 1945, when Japan lost WWII, or the 'Pacific War'.[1] Found in the then thriving secondhand and black markets (I cant think why MacArthur Jr.), Denim would have been a discarded textile garment left behind by American soldiers returning home. By 1955, it was seen as part of the counter-culture to wear denim as a way to piss off Tokyoites conservative parents.[1] RANT: Now I often hear this is because it was 'Muricas Softpower' influence, but archival liberation shows Japanese people often had at the time so little access to these due to the fact that money was worthless that it just was seen as an 'American' import like chocolate (technically so as that comes from Mexico byway of Britain) so it was used to subtly say 'f.u.' to the morals and ethics of a previous generations stuff ups, as the term 'Yankee' coined around 1975 (when young people born in the war came of age), means troublemaker, not cool Statesian.[2] Unfortunately, a large number of young people would have gone without, as in Britain, due to shortages, UNTIL THE LATE 50s, unlike in the States where people had plenty due to their thriving economy.
Ametra (Ame[rica] Tra[ditional] | アメツラ) as it has since become known, is a Japanese style which first adopted North American styles like the Ivy Prep style in 1964.[3][4] The wealthiest groups first begin wearing Denim this way and were dubbed Taiyōzoku ( Youths | 太陽族 ) by the Japanese press after the 1955 novel Season of the Sun ( Taiyō no Kisetsu | 太陽の季節), similar to the Ivy League look.[1][5] By the end of the 1960s though, production costs took precedence in Statesian land, and the export of good quality products to Japan became scarce. By 1972 in Kojima, Japanese designers began to create their own denim, inspired by the 1960s left behind American fashions which were popular in the previous decade. Kojima remains the Japanese denim hub today. These eventually became large businesses which specialised in Denim production on traditional looms around Osaka by the 1980s.[1] However, Denim still retained a patina of Westerner. Albeit Westerner chic.
And with this westerner chic, came the emergence of the 1990s on revival of vintage Kimono and upcycling. This in turn, came from the pizza effect Kimono and Denim often had as part of globally adopted textile culture. From 2005 for example, 'An Yoon Jung presented a rhinestone accented denim kimono wrap jacket'.[12] By the 2010s, Denim became a fabric Japanese craftspeople had grown familiar with. Since 2008, Kyoto Denim have created Kimono inspired accessories in Denim and from 2014, created a series of 'Kimono' in Denim.[11] Jotaro Saito exhibited a full denim kimono in 2016.[13] Sheila Cliffe also notes in her 2017 book of a number of designers using Denim, showing the wider acceptance and upheaval Kimono is currently undergoing, probably a similar process to that of Velvet Kimono design in the 1590s.[14] Denim thus has been used in Kimono since the arrival of Issei in Hawaii in the 19th century and by 2008, been accepted as a domesticated imported textile, and as such suitable for domestic Kimono usage and used to draw in wider, contemporary and modern global audiences towards KTC.
Bibliography
[1] https://redcastheritage.com/pages/history-of-japanese-denim
[2] https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=35615#:~:text=In%20any%20case%2C%20the%20association,on%20in%20the%201980s%20nationally.
[3] https://subcultz.com/ivy-league-japan-1964/#:~:text=The%20first%20Japanese%20to%20adopt,means%20subculture%20or%20social%20group)
[4] https://www.esquire.com/style/mens-fashion/a22804481/japan-tokyo-ame-tra-american-traditionalist-style-fashion/
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoku#1950s/60s
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denim
[7] https://theculturetrip.com/europe/france/articles/how-the-history-of-denim-can-be-traced-back-to-nimes/
[8] Personal research.
[9] http://www.historyofjeans.com/jeans-history/history-of-denim/
[10] Japanese Immigrant Clothing in Hawaii 1885-1941, Barbara F. Kawakami, 1995, pp.104-105
[11] Kyoto and Nara: Rough Guides Snapshot Japan, Rough Guides, 2014 | https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=vLOBBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT72&dq=%22denim+kimono%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiL-_-O2eb1AhURhlwKHT0ODAgQuwV6BAgHEAc#v=onepage&q=%22denim%20kimono%22&f=false
[12] International Textiles, Stephen Higginson, 2005, Vol. 843, pp.unknown, Benjamin Dent & Co
[13] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2016/03/26/style/designer-jotaro-saito-seeks-free-kimono-confines-tradition/
[14] The Social Life of Kimono: Japanese Fashion Past and Present, Sheila Cliffe, 2017, pp.134-164
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