Kapital Zipang Natural Indigo TP-2

So, in a pilgrimage day excursion we took the bullet train from Osaka to Okayama, and then down to Kojima. I had read about Kojima being the Holy Land of Jeans on the KrashJapan web site, so I was keen to visit.

Overall, the trip was a bit of a let down. The Rampuya Indigo workshop and Weaving workshops were small and more for display than manufacture. I also wasn't that excited by their Momotaro jeans. Their denim wasn't as tightly woven or as textured/slubby as I like.

On the way back to the station we stopped in at the Kapital denim shop. I really liked their clothing and accessories.

I ended up getting a pair of their top-of-the-line denim, TP-2. Straight cut, Natural Indigo, they have one gold rivet on the coin pocket, they also come in a paulownia wooden box with an indigo scarf which has an ancient map with a sewn silver thread depicting the silk route.

Extract from a Kyodo News story

Hirata used an old machine to weave thread by loosening its tension and attached a pure gold rivet to a pocket. He placed each pair of aizome jeans in a box made of paulownia tree hoping it would last a lifetime like kimono.

He turns out 300 pairs of such jeans a year and sells them for 39,900 yen each. ''We are in the red (making them) but I'm happy even if we cannot sell them more,'' Hirata said.

Here's a video of the staff cutting and chainstitching the hems. This guy was fast. Before I started the camera he had cut the hem, and double stitched over the outseam to reinforce it.

• The TP-2 on the Kapital Jeans Web Site