Competitiveness in the Japanese Denim and Jeans Industry:
The Cases of Kaihara and Japan Blue, 1970-2015
Rika Fujioka and Ben Wubs
Introduction
In the 1950s and 1960s, blue jeans became a symbol of youth protests against the conformity
of their parents. As a garment, jeans appealed to the emerging youth culture. Denim was seen
as a classless fabric, and rejecting traditional fashion was a way to make a statement against
intolerance and injustice in the United States.1 Jeans and denim spread rapidly across the
Western world during the 1960s and 1970s as a symbol of liberty and non-conformity. By the
1980s, however, the manufacturing of denim and jeans had largely relocated from the US to
China, Brazil, North Africa, Turkey, and Japan.
Anti-establishment street fashion also spread throughout Japan in the 1960s. As the demand
for traditional cotton kimonos was falling, many manufacturers switched to the production of
denim and jeans. In the early 1970s, local manufacturers like Kaihara moved from producing
traditional fabrics to denim. Kaihara was established in 1893 by Sukejiro Kaihara as a weaver
of indigo fabrics, or “kasuri,” in what is now Fukuyama City in the Hiroshima Prefecture.
Today, this family controlled company is Japan’s largest denim manufacturer, operating four
1
Iain Finlayson, Denim: an American Legend (Norwich: Parke Sutton Publishing, 1990) p. 18, 27.
1
integrated denim mills in Japan and one in Thailand, and serving more than fifty per cent of
the Japanese denim market.
During the 1970s and 1980s, designer and vintage jeans appeared on the catwalk when
Vivienne Westwood, Karl Lagerfeld, and Giorgio Armani, among others, pushed them to the
forefront of the high-end fashion market.2 Vintage and designer denim became an important
part of the global fashion system. One Japanese company that entered this new market was
Japan Blue, which was set up in 1992 by indigo fan Hisao Manabe in Kojima, which is part
of Kurashiki City in the Okayama Prefecture. Japan Blue introduced four brands of premium
denim jeans. The company is much smaller than the textile manufacturer Kaihara, and does
not operate integrated textile mills, instead obtaining fabrics as part of a large manufacturing
cluster in the prefecture.
The two case-studies in this paper draw on interviews with the CEOs of Kaihara and Japan
Blue and documents provided by the companies. They fit perfectly within a comparative,
historical study of Japanese premium denim and jeans. On the one hand, the article
demonstrates that producing denim, the fabric, is a different story and needs a different
strategy than producing jeans, the garment. On the other, the two stories are also closely
related because of interdependence between the two industries: Kaihara, for example, dyes
Japan Blue’s woven cotton. Furthermore, producing for the high-end market (Japan Blue)
requires a totally different strategy than doing so for its lower-end counterpart (Kaihara). An
in-depth historical analysis of these two cases will thus provide good insight into the
historical competiveness of Japan’s denim and jeans manufacturing in the last five decades.
The history of Japanese denim is also a great example of cultural encounters. Western style
became a symbol of a new, modern life and the democratization of Japanese society. Denim
was one of the symbolic products of democracy. American GIs at the General Headquarters
(GHQ) of the Allied Forces, who all wore jeans, made a huge impression on Japanese youths.
The Americanization or Westernization of Japanese youth and street culture took place
Graham Marsh, Denim: from Cowboys to catwalks. A visual history of the world’s most legendary fabric
(London: Aurum Press Limited, 2002) p. 107-118.
2
2
simultaneously. Denim was street-fashion, classless, and anonymous, and symbolized the
revolution that clothes no longer represented one’s position in the social hierarchy.3
In 1904, Georg Simmel published his seminal article ‘Fashion’, in which he argues that the
individual is able to pursue desires for group identity and individual expression through
clothing.4 This meant that personal values could be expressed while still following the norms
of the group. People communicate through fashion, according to Simmel, but the elite
dictates what is fashionable and the lower strata follow in its wake.
Social forms, apparel, aesthetic judgement, the whole style of human
expression, are constantly transformed by fashion, in such a way, however,
that fashion—i.e., the latest fashion—in all these things affects only the upper
class. Just as soon as the lower classes begin to copy their style, thereby
crossing the line of demarcation the upper classes have drawn and destroying
the uniformity of their coherence, the upper classes turn away from this style
and adopt a new one, which in its turn differentiates them from the masses;
and thus the game goes merrily on.5
According to Robert Ross, jeans were probably the first piece of clothing to become
fashionable from below, i.e., from the working to the upper-classes.6 Designer and vintage
jeans no longer symbolized a classless society in the 1980s and 1990s; on the contrary, they
began to represent class and taste, and wholesale prices increased enormously. Japanese
manufacturers, with their traditional focus on quality and craftsmanship, began to play a role
in this global market for premium denim and jeans.
3
Iain Finlayson, Denim: an American Legend (Norwich: Parke Sutton Publishing, 1990) p.25; Paul Fussell,
Uniforms: Why We Are What We Wear (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company 2002) p.48.
4
The article was translated into English and published in the US in 1957. Simmel, Georg. 1957. "Fashion."
American Journal of Sociology 62 (6): 541-558.
5
Simmel, Georg. 1957. "Fashion." American Journal of Sociology 62 (6): 545.
6
Ross, Robert. 2008. Clothing: A Global History. Cambridge: Polity, 149-150
3
Japanese denim is often praised for its exceptional quality, and is rumored to be produced on
vintage Toyoda looms. Is this myth or reality? How have the Japanese companies producing
denim and jeans become leaders in the field and competitive in the last five decades, and how
have they survived in a highly competitive global industry that has always relocated
manufacturing to low-cost nations? Is it the exceptional quality of Japanese denim and jeans
which makes Japanese manufacturers so competitive in the global market? What about
economies of scale? Does quantity matter as well? What is the role of new technology in
Japanese denim manufacturing, and why did the Okayama and Hiroshima prefectures become
the centers of denim and jeans manufacturing in Japan?
1. Japanese fashion tradition and the introduction of Western-style fashion
A kimono is a traditional Japanese robe, and is tied at the waist by a wide cotton belt called
an obi. It has no buttons, zips, or any other kind of fastening. The shape is very simple and
has only one pattern, which makes enjoyment of the style very limited. Kimono fashion
trends are based on the textiles used to produce the garment, which sometimes have very
modern designs and sometimes more traditional ones.7 A kimono is made from many
different types of fabric, including silk, cotton, linen, and mixed yarn. The type of fabric also
defines the kimono’s suitability for different occasions, such as high-quality silk for
ceremonial events, cotton for casual wear and work clothes, and a mixed yarn of cotton and
wool for more fashionable styles. Manufacturers strive to develop new fabrics, stitching
techniques, and textiles, and kimono fashion is very different from its Western counterpart.
Most people wore kimonos in Japan before WWII. At the time of the Meiji Restoration,
however, the country began to adopt Western practices, including in relation to its school and
land tax systems, conscription, and the Gregorian calendar. In 1872, the Japanese government
announced that the royal family and government officers should wear Western-style, formal
regal attire at ceremonies. From then on, the Emperor wore Western-style clothes for his
official duties and kimonos in private. Other royal family members, some politicians, and
See H. Tamura, Fashion no Shakai Keizai shi (Tokyo; Nihon Keizai Hyoron sha, 2004), Y. Jinno, ‘Modern
Japan and «Ryukou», Transformation of Fashion with the Advance of Social Modernization’, Japanese Society
for the Science of Design, 9:4(2002), and J. Sapin, ‘Merchandising Art and Identity in Meiji Japan: Kyoto
Nihonga Artists’ Designs for Takashimaya Department Store, 1868-1912’, Journal of Design History,
17:4(2004).
7
4
high-ranked officers also wore Western-style clothes, as did the army, the police, and railway
and postal workers.8 Rokumeikan, the Japanese government’s first Western-style guest house,
was built in 1884, and politicians wearing Western clothes welcomed guests from Western
countries there. Catching Western countries up was a government strategy after the Meiji
Restoration, but also meant a revolution for Japanese society as a whole in terms of the
introduction of Western clothes. Although the government encouraged citizens to wear
Western clothing, this did not mean that it immediately, or smoothly, penetrated Japanese
society. In Osaka in 1887, for example, only nine per cent of men wore Western-style clothes
and only 0.2 per cent of women.9 The famous Japanese department store Mitsukoshi opened a
Western clothes division in 1888, but had to close it down again in 1895, because it did not
have enough customers, even in Tokyo.10
Only the upper-classes, and mainly men, wore Western-style clothes before WWII. While
some men had official and social opportunities to wear these garments, women did not.11
Some young, upper-class women learned the sewing skills required to make Western clothes
at school, along with the traditional skills needed to produce kimonos. These were seen as
cultural accomplishments. Nevertheless, these women were still wearing traditional Japanese
kimonos, even when they had Western sewing lessons. A few Western-style dressmaking
schools were established in Tokyo and Osaka from around 1920, and some magazines
introduced Western fashion and lifestyles as examples of modern life.12 At that time, however,
work uniforms for women in roles such as clerks changed to a Western style, and working
women in general, including teachers, cashiers, telephone operators, and office workers,
gradually adopted Western fashion for work, although there were very few women who were
employed outside the home at the time.
8
S. Nakagome, Nihon no Ifuku Sangyo, (Tokyo; Toyo Keizai Shinpo sha, 1975), pp. 38-39.
9
Youhinkai ed., Youhin 100 nen no ayumi [a 100 Year History of Western Clothes] (Tokyo; Youhinkai, 1968)
p.?.
10
Mitsukoshi, Mitsukoshi 100 nen no kiroku [ a 100 Year History of Mitsukoshi] (Tokyo; Mitsukoshi, 2005) p.?.
11
Women first obtained the right to an education in 1872. However, the Japanese education system changed
slowly. See: M. Patessio, Women and Public Life in Early Meiji Japan: The Development of the Feminist
Movement, (Ann Arbor; Center for Japanese Studies, The University of Michigan, 2011).
Y. Yoshimoto, ‘Onna no Jiritsu wo Sasaeta Yosai’, in Yosai no Jidai, edited by K. Koizumi, (Tokyo; OM
shuppan, 2004) pp.23-29.
12
5
The start of industrialization in Japan, and the increased gross national product (GNP) in the
late 1910s, caused the incomes of salaried workers to increase so much that they could
support the rise of a new clothing industry by wearing Western-style suits at the office.
Furthermore, in due course, the Japanese manufacturing system for Western clothing
developed and improved. Mitsukoshi, for example, hired Western clothing manufacturing
staff in 1906 to create items that would fit Japanese customers better, while other department
stores like Takashimaya sent their managers and associated manufacturers to Europe to learn
Western engineering and production skills from firms there. Eventually, demand and supplyside factors created a Western-style Japanese clothes’ market in urban areas in the 1930s.13
2. From a working-class fabric and garment to an American icon
Denim and jeans are often portrayed as an American fabric and a pair of trousers,
respectively. Their histories, though, are much more complicated, multifaceted, and
transnational than Levi’s wants us to believe. According to its website, ‘Levi Strauss [was]
the inventor of the quintessential American garment.’14 In 1872, Levi Strauss, an immigrant
from Bavaria who had become a successful wholesaler of dry goods in San Francisco,
received a letter from one of his customers, a tailor named Jacob Davis. Davis proposed that
Strauss should patent his idea of using rivets at the points of strain in a pair of jeans. Davis
needed capital to patent his idea, and Strauss saw a business opportunity. The patent was
granted to Davis and Levi Strauss & Company on May 20th 1873, which is why the firm still
regards this as the birthday of blue jeans.15 The working garment, however, had been around
for many years, or even centuries, previously being called ‘waste overalls’ or ‘overalls’; they
were only coined ‘jeans’ after WWII.16 Nevertheless, riveted blue jeans became a huge
success and one of the icons of American industrial history.
13
Nakagome, p. 49.
14
http://www.levistrauss.com/our-story/(assessed 23-6-2016).
15
http://www.levistrauss.com/our-story/(assessed 23-6-2016).
16
According to Ninke Bloemberg, trousers made of a denim-like fabric can be seen on an anonymous Dutch
painting from the Golden Age: Begging woman with two children. Ninke Bloemberg, ‘Dutch Jeans’, in: Ninke
Bloemberg and Hans Schopping, Blue Jeans (Utrecht: Centraal Museum 2012), p.7.
6
According to Pascale Gorguet Ballesteros, a senior curator at Palais Galliera in Paris, the
story is more complicated, as it involves two textiles, jean and denim, and one pair of trousers,
formerly called overalls.17 It is a myth that the blue denim of Levi’s jeans came from the
French city of Nîmes, although the name is related to the fabric. Lynn Downey, a former
archivist of Levi Strauss, maintains that Levi’s denim was bought from the Amoskeag Mill in
Manchester, New Hampshire in the late 1870s. According to Ballestros, denim had English
roots, but had been developed successfully in the US since the end of the eighteenth
century.18 The French Serge de Nîmes was a cotton and wool twill, and was woven to have a
surface of diagonal parallel ridges that can be traced back to eighteenth century England. In
England, however, the fabric was made exclusively from cotton, and was anglicized to
‘denim’ to categorize this particular twill and give it a certain sophistication.19 ‘Jean’, worn
by Genoese sailors, was a lighter version of denim and was also made in New England. This
fabric was less wear-resistant and lost popularity in the nineteenth century, before returning
as the name for the garment years later.20
So, it was not Levi Strauss that invented denim and jeans, but the company did have a
successful marketing strategy for the garment in the late nineteenth century and, of course,
owned the patent for riveted overalls. Competitors rapidly followed suit, and before Levi’s
patent expired in 1890, it had sued several competitors for patent infringements.21 During
WWI, women entered factories and the demand for denim overalls rose, as skirts were too
dangerous for many factory jobs This had two indirect effects: wearing trousers became more
17
In 1994, she curated «Histoires du jeans de 1750 à 1994, Paris Musées».
Pascale Gorguet Ballesteros, ‘Jean and denim, between myth and reality’, Denim on Stage. University meets
Industry. Enterprise of Culture Conference, 30 October 2015, Denim City Amsterdam.
http://www.enterpriseofculture.leeds.ac.uk/upcoming-events/denim-on-stage-university-meets-industry-atdenim-city-in-amsterdam/speakers/ (assessed 23-6-2016).
18
19
Rachel Louise Snyder, Fugitive Denim: A Moving Story of People and Pants in the Borderless World of
Global Trade, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, p.139.
20
Rachel Louise Snyder, Fugitive Denim: A Moving Story of People and Pants in the Borderless World of
Global Trade, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, p.140.
21
James Sullivan, Jeans: A Cultural History of an American Icon, New York: Gotham, 2007, p.36.
7
normal for women, and denim overalls entered the leisure market and were even called
‘womanalls’.22
Sandra Curtis Comstock maintains that Blue Jeans became ‘a gender- and class-blurring icon
of the American people’ during the Great Depression of the 1930s.23 She demonstrates that
changes at the production, distribution, and consumption levels created this massive shift
from a working-class garment to an American icon. On the production side, Levi Strauss
suffered tremendously due to the economic crisis of the 1930s, as expenditure on work
clothing plummeted. After the 1934 workers’ boycott of Levi Strauss, particularly in San
Francisco, the company began to target the middle-class market using Western and frontier
advertising campaigns. This eventually led to an article in Vogue in 1935 on the Lady Levi,
which led to new outlets for denim, including in department stores. Moreover, the New Deal
stimulated workers’ activism and egalitarianism, and inspired writers, singers, artists, and
photographers who all, in one way or another, promoted jeans as the new symbol of the
American people.24
During WWII, wearing jeans became even more of a symbol of patriotism, liberty, and
democracy for American women. More college girls began wearing jeans, and working-class
women, taking over factory jobs on the Home Front while men were serving in the army,
were getting used to wearing jeans. Rosie the Riveter, wearing denim overalls, was portrayed
by the American media as the symbol of working women, and was turned into a national
heroine representing nineteen million American women in the labor force. As these women
were viewed in a positive light, their denim overalls were seen as part of their patriotic duty
and were therefore generally accepted.25
22
Pim Jansen, Denimism. Denim in the feminist movement and the perception of the American Media, 19151975, Master’s Thesis, Erasmus University Rotterdam 2015, p.21.
Sandra Curtis Comstock, ‘The Making of an American Icon: The Transformation of Blue Jeans during the
Great Depression’, in: Daniel Miller and Sophie Woodward, Global Denim (New York: Berg 2011), p. 23.
23
Sandra Curtis Comstock, ‘The Making of an American Icon: The Transformation of Blue Jeans during the
Great Depression’, in: Daniel Miller and Sophie Woodward, Global Denim (New York: Berg 2011), pp.35-38.
24
25
Patricia Anne Cunningham and Susan Voso Lab, Dress and Popular Culture (Bowling Green: State
University Popular Press) p. 32.
8
The post-war period revealed contradictory tendencies in American fashion: on the one hand,
there was a return to old feminine, elegant styles like the New Look, while on the other
denim and jeans continued to symbolize the American lifestyle. In particular, middle-class
American youths, who had become richer and more demanding, began to wear denim as a
token of their individuality, although they almost always dressed identically and all of them
copied movie stars like Marlon Brando and James Dean.26 Nevertheless, denim’s image of
liberty, egalitarianism, and non-conformism rapidly spread across the globe, including to
Japan.
3. From the traditional kimono to jeans
After WWII, the Japanese continued to Westernize their lifestyle, including their clothes, but
at a much faster pace than before the war. In the mid-1950s, the purchase volume of Western
clothes exceeded that of traditional Japanese garments.27 Along with high economic growth
and industrial development in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the kimono market shrank and
Western fashion became a phenomenon. Western clothing in particular was introduced to
young Japanese from 1950-1970; first came tailor-made clothes for the upper and uppermiddle classes, while mass-market consumers began making their own Western-style
clothing at home. In the 1970s, however, clothing companies rapidly increased their sales,
and ready-to-wear garments soon became common to all generations and income classes in
Japan.28
Against this background, the introduction of jeans was revolutionary. Japanese consumers
first encountered the garment during the recovery period; when they met Americans from the
GHQ, they saw they were wearing jeans. As Americans began to introduce many
fundamental ideals of Western democracy to the country, the young Japanese began to
identify jeans as a symbol of freedom and individuality, and started buying second-hand
versions from stores on the US military base. They were happy to adapt the jeans fashion as a
26
David Little, Vintage Denim (Salt Lake City, UT, Gibbs Smith, Publisher 1996), p. 56.
T. Kikkawa and M. Takaoka, ‘Sengo Nihon no Seikatsu Yoshiki no Henka to Ryutsu heno impact’, Shakai
Kagaku Kenkyu [the Journal of Social Science], 48(5), 1997.
27
28
A. Kinoshita, Apareru Sangyo no Marketing shi, (Tokyo; Dobunkan, 2011).
9
form of expression of their acceptance of informal American culture. Until then, Japan had a
strong culture of honor, tradition, and respect, which stimulated uniformity and not
individuality. A simple pair of jeans symbolized a break from this.29 In Tokyo, a few stores
began to sell second-hand blue jeans. Edwin, for example, started to import second-hand
jeans in 1947, and by 1950 the garment had become a fashion favorite, regardless of the
design or quality of the denim. Japanese youths enjoyed the style of jeans, which was very
different from traditional fashion. The GHQ had thus created an initial demand for jeans in
Japan.30 The masses were wearing kimonos until the 1960s. Cotton kimonos were for daily
use, but the working classes had also been allowed to wear silk kimonos on special occasions
since the Meiji Restoration. Cotton kimonos thus remained a class item, although middleclass youngsters began to dress like the US working classes. Denim and jeans therefore
changed the fashion system, including in Japan: for the first time, class no longer mattered in
the way that Simmel had analyzed it.
Anti-establishment street fashion spread throughout Japan in the 1960s, just as it did in
Western Europe and North America. Simultaneously, Christian Dior and Pierre Cardin
launched a license business in Japan in the growing luxury market. Over the next decade, the
American hippy culture and West coast and IVY fashion all conquered Japan.31 This meant
they were equated with Western ideals of liberty and democracy, and this created a demand
for jeans. This demand had increased steadily since the late 1960s, meaning that local
manufacturers like Big John, Edwin, and Kaihara switched from producing traditional fabrics
and apparel to denim and jeans during the 1960s and early 1970s.32
4. Growth of Japanese jeans and the denim industry
During the development of the Western fashion industry in Japan, many traditional textile
manufacturers suffered due to the Westernization of clothing. Some industrial clusters were
forced to convert to Western-style clothing manufacturing instead of traditional kimonos. The
29
David Little, Vintage Denim (Salt Lake City, UT, Gibbs Smith, Publisher 1996), p. 18.
30
I. Kouga, ‘Wagakuni Jeans brand wo torimaku Kankyo’, Jeans Casual Reader, 2007, 2007.
31
W. D. Marx, AMETORA: How Japan Saved American Style, (New York; Basic Books, 2015).
32
S. Sugiyama, Nihon Jeans Monogatari, (Okayama; Kibito Shuppan, 2009).
10
demand for cotton kimonos in particular plummeted within the kimono market. Silk kimonos
were able to survive due to a shift to targeting the luxury market.33 Indeed, even when
Western clothing had fully penetrated Japan, silk kimonos for special occasions survived due
to the perception of them in Japanese society. There were distinct social classes in the Edo
period from 1603-1868, each with their own attire: the upper classes wore silk kimonos and
the working classes cotton or linen versions.34 In the Meiji period, which began in 1868,
people gained the freedom to wear any type of clothing, meaning that anyone could wear silk
kimonos on occasions such as weddings, funerals, and anniversaries. Indeed, people enjoyed
wearing them, and so these garments were able to survive as luxury products.
This was evidently not the case for cotton kimonos, which were made for work and daily use,
and it was difficult to find a place for these in the new clothing market when they were
competing against modern Western styles. One of the cotton kimonos, the Kasuri, was
particularly problematic, as they could be more expensive to produce and buy than silk
versions. No one was therefore able to successfully promote the wearing of cotton kimonos
for daily use or work. As a result, the shrinking of the kimono market meant that Kasuri
textile manufacturers had to transform their business models. A few leading cotton garment
companies attempted to produce jeans with imported machines, denim, buttons, zippers, and
yarns.35 The first denim brand in Japan, Big John, established a uniform factory in Kojima,
Okayama in 1940. It started to import and sell jeans in 1958, manufactured the first made-inJapan jeans with US denim in 1967, and produced the first local-made denim in 1972.36
Some textile manufacturers started to weave denim, while some dyeing companies began to
dye denim based on techniques they had used to produce Kasuri. The textile and dyeing
company Kaihara was one of the first to adopt these new practices in 1970. Rope dyeing was
the biggest hurdle these companies had to overcome, and they had to learn the technique
through reverse engineering, i.e. the process of extracting knowledge or design information
33
T. Hashino, Luxury market and survival: Japan's Traditional kimono weaving industry after the 1950,
Discussion Paper of Kobe University, No. 1507, 2015.
34
Nakagome, Ifuku, p.36; T. Abe, Nihon no Keizai Hatten to Seni Sangyo: Mengyo wo chuushin ni, Senni Kikai
Gakkai Shi, 68(9), 2015, p.526.
35
Sugiyama, Jeans, pp. 62-69.
36
http://1940.bigjohn.co.jp/history/(assessed 25 March 2016); http://www.denimsandjeans.com/news/big-johnjourney-of-the-first-japanese-brand (assessed 23 June 2016).
11
from US jeans by taking them apart and re-producing them. In the early days, the quality was
poor compared with US denim. These manufacturers were, however, able to sell them at a
lower price, meaning they could compete with imported US labels. Some Japanese denim
manufacturers even started to export their low-cost denim in 1973, but had to quickly
improve the quality to achieve that of US denim and jeans.37
37
Jetro, Okayama ken Jeans meker no Genjo to Oushu shijo no Doukou ni tsuite, 1995, Jetro Kaigai Keizai
Jouhou Centre; Okayama, p.3.
12
140.000
Figure 2. Denim Production Volume
(Thousands ㎡)
120.000
100.000
80.000
Bingo
Bicchu
Bizen
60.000
40.000
20.000
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
0
Data: Yano Research Institute , Each Year.
13
The main manufacturing clusters of the Japanese denim industry were in the current
Okayama and Hiroshima prefectures, which included the former provinces of Bingo, Bicchu,
and Bizen (see Figure 1).38 As shown in Figure 2, the volume of denim production increased
in the early 1980s. Bizen was the largest producer, along with many small manufacturers in
the 1970s, but reduced its output after 1990. In contrast, Bingo has increased its denim output
since the 1990s. The largest denim manufacturer in the province is Kaihara, and this greatly
affects the area’s overall output volume. Like the denim industry, jeans manufacturers also
clustered in the Okayama and Hiroshima prefectures, the market share of which is around
forty-six per cent, and this remained unchanged from 2000-2013. While figures 3 and 4
include the sale of work clothes, uniforms, and medical garments, in addition to jeans, these
other categories are small compared to the total sales figures for jeans.
Fig. 3 Sales of work clothes, work uniforms,
and medical garments in 2000
Okayama
Hiroshima
41687
Saitama
51543
Akita
Hokkaido
7441 2192
Osaka
29447
12354
5350 2225
Aichi
Other Prefectures
Data: Census of Manufacture (Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, 2000)
This chapter focuses on Bizen and Bingo. Regarding Bicchu, see Nihon Shoko Kaigisho, ‘Chiiki ga Ichigan to
nari Sekai ga Mitomeru Denim no Miryoku wo Hasshin’, Ishigaki, 401, 2013.
38
14
Fig. 4 Sales of work clothes, work uniforms,
and medical garments in 2013
Okayama
Hiroshima
17357
Saitama
21937
Akita
2053
Hokkaido
5039
5393
Osaka
13069
7877 3298
Aichi
Other Prefectures
Data: Census of Manufacture (Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, 2013)
So, why did the Okayama and Hiroshima prefectures become hubs of denim and jeans
manufacturing in Japan? To answer this, it is necessary to examine the genesis of Japanese
denim and jeans manufacturing. The Okayama and Hiroshima prefectures were the main
producers of cotton kimonos before WWII. In 1828, the Bingo province started to produce
Kasuri for daily use, made from cotton fabric dyed with indigo. Although there are several
kinds of cotton kimono, the Kasuri is one of the leading items of cotton work clothing. There
were three famous Kasuri clusters in Japan: Iyo, Kurume, and Bingo. Of these, Bingo became
the largest, as the local government promoted the production of cotton fabrics and Kasuri.
However, their production volume peaked in 1960 due to the shrinking of the kimono market
later in the decade.39
The main jeans cluster in the Kojima area in Bizen (now in Okayama) started to grow cotton
S. Nagata, ‘Sanbi Chiku ni okeru Seni Sangyoshuseki no Genjo’, Fukuoka Kenritsu Daigaku Ningen Shakai
Gakubu Kiyo, 21(1), 2012; M. Shinomiya, ‘Dento to Kakushin, Kaihara Kabushiki Kaisha no Case’, Kanto
Gakuin Daigaku Keizai Keiei Kenkyusho Nenpo, 36, 2014; Okayama Kenshi.
39
15
in the mid-Edo period.40 Although most Japanese rural areas at the time were growing rice,
the land in Kojima was unsuitable for doing so because of the high salt content caused by its
seaside location. As a result, in the late-Edo period between 1789 and 1801, Kojima started to
produce cotton obis and cotton textiles for Hakama, which are traditional, formal trousers,
and elegant Japanese-style waistcoats for men of the samurai class that were worn on
ceremonial occasions under the system of centralized feudalism. After the Meiji Restoration
in 1868, however, these traditional clothes were rarely worn,41 and the Kojima cluster needed
to find a new product.
In 1877, the Kojima cluster started to produce Tabi, which are Japanese-style socks, and then
work clothes in the 1910s. Later, in the 1920s, it started to produce Western-style school
uniforms, for which there was increasing demand. 42 As the Kojima cluster already used
advanced cutting and sewing techniques for the thick textiles used to make Tabi, it had an
advantage when it came to launching these new categories of clothing. Existing Tabi sales
channels were also used for the new products. Kojima thus became the largest producer of
school uniforms in Japan, with a ninety per cent market share in 1937. However, the demand
for school uniforms fell from 1965-1970, because the baby boom generation graduated and a
wider variety of uniforms emerged.43 Some manufacturers in Kojima started to produce jeans
to make up for this.44 Although these companies were very small in size, the entire jeans
production process, from spinning to sewing, was completed within the Kojima area in due
course.45
40
The Edo or Tokugawa period is the period between 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when Japanese
society was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate.
41
In 1868, the Tokugawa shôgun, who ruled Japan in the feudal period, lost his power and the Emperor was
restored to his supreme position. The Emperor took the name Meiji ("enlightened rule"). This event is called the
Meiji Restoration.
T. Abe, ‘The Development of the Producing-Center Cotton Textile Industry in Japan between the Two World
Wars’, Japanese Yearbook on Business History, 9, 1992.
42
43
Jetro, Okayamaken, pp. 7-8.
44
It was the small, not the large, manufacturers of school uniforms that first switched to jeans production. (J.
Tatemi, ‘Okayamaken Kojima Apparel Sanchi no Hatten Mechanism’, in Shukusho Jidai no Sangyoshuseki,
edited by H. Ueda, Tokyo; Soufuusha, 2004)
45
Okayama ken, Okayamaken shi, Yamakawa Shuppansha, 2012.
16
5. The different strategies of Japan Blue and Kaihara
As shown by figures 2 and 5, the volume of denim production fell after the late 1980s, and
the volume of jeans produced did likewise after the late 1990s. After the collapse of the
Japanese bubble economy in 1991, the clothing market shrunk and the jeans market soon
followed suit. At this point, there were two ways for jeans manufacturers to survive. The first
was to upgrade the products sold. Premium jeans, which sold at over 10,000 yen a pair
(around 100 Euros), and jeans with selvages, which were made on vintage machines, had
become fashionable. This premium jeans movement on the West Coast of the US around
2000 was led by AG and 7 For All Mankind, and then spread to Japan. To meet the demand, a
number of newcomers were established in the Japanese premium jeans market, although most
of these disappeared after newer fashions emerged. Japan Blue, however, was one of the
success stories in the premium jeans market and survived the cut-throat competition.
Fig. 5 Volume of Jeans Production
90.000
(Thousands of pairs of jeans)
80.000
70.000
60.000
50.000
40.000
30.000
20.000
10.000
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
0
17
In 1992, indigo fan Hisao Manabe and his partner Masahiro Suwaki set up a firm called
Collect Co., with the aim of creating new, high quality indigo fabrics in Kojima, in the
Okayama Prefecture.46 The city was known for its traditional cotton production and indigo
dyeing, as well as for Japanese denim and jeans manufacturing by brands like Big John since
the 1960s. In 1993, Manabe and Suwaki began to buy and operate old Toyoda shuttle looms
to weave selvage denim. These looms produce tightly woven strips of heavy fabric, and the
selvedge (or selvage) is the edge of the fabric as it comes from the loom. The vintage denim
could be recognized by the selvage, and this was generally seen by denim lovers as a sign of
quality. By using the old looms, selvage denim and jeans could be produced again, and were
deemed by consumers to be of a higher quality. They thus commanded a higher price. Denim
manufacturers had switched to projectile looms after the 1950s. These created wider swaths
of fabric at a much lower price than the shuttle looms, and were regarded in the 1990s as an
inferior product, although this was not necessarily the case.47
In 1994, Manabe and Suwaki started to use exclusive and expensive Zimbabwean cotton for
the production of denim and developed a high profile fabric. A year later, they invested in
research into natural indigo, and created their own blue color, which they named Japan Blue.
This was based on the color of an old cotton kimono.48 The company had started as a textile
converter (wholesaler) and launched its first store in 2003, producing its own, original brand
of hand-dyed, hand-woven jeans labeled Momotaro. At that time, many manufacturers in
Kojima used a special washing technique for jeans. Japan Blue’s stores, however, specialized
in producing authentic jeans with selvage made from 100 per cent cotton denim and 100 per
cent cotton yarn, and dyed with traditional Japanese natural indigo. Japan Blue leveraged the
Kojima cluster, which includes many small, specialized production companies such as textile,
Eugenie Puts, “Made in Japan”. An analysis of the meanings and processes behind a ‘Japanese’ product:
denim (Bachelor Thesis HO Gent 2016), p.19.
46
47
http://www.artofmanliness.com/2014/04/22/raw-selvedge-denim-introduction/(assessed 7 July 2016).
Eugenie Puts, “Made in Japan”. An analysis of the meanings and processes behind a ‘Japanese’ product:
denim (Bachelor Thesis HO Gent 2016), p.19.
48
18
dyeing, finishing, and sewing shops. 49 Japan Blue leads the way in terms of product
management, and controls the orders within the cluster. Its style of jeans is very simple, but it
makes its products slowly with vintage machines, including old Toyoda looms. Although the
sales of premium jeans in Japan peaked in 2005, Japan Blue continues to increase its sales
with its marketing strategy. Premium jeans have therefore been the main driver of the
company’s expansion, although the sale of wholesale items increased from 2008-2014, rather
than sales in stores.50
A second way for jeans manufacturers to survive global competition was the transfer of their
production base to low-cost Asian countries like China. Large garment manufacturers like
Levi Strauss, Japan Blue, Big John, and Edwin moved to China to benefit from lower labor
costs after the 1985 Plaza Accord.51 Manufacturers who specialized in lower-price jeans also
transferred to China and other Asian countries, especially those producing them for
hypermarkets like Ito Yokado and AEON, and specialty jeans stores like Jeanmate and Righton. This shift naturally caused a reduction in Japan’s domestic denim production. The second
largest denim company, Kurabo, first shifted its production to Hong Kong, and then
established a joint venture in China in 2013. As a result, its production capacity expanded and
its cost-effectiveness increased. Only its selvage denim was produced in a domestic plant. In
2011, like many other jeans and denim manufacturers, Nisshinbo, the third-largest denim
company in Japan, shifted its production to Indonesia and decided to slash domestic
production to increase the efficiency of its production process and benefit from lower labor
costs.52
49
The wholesalers connected with the same manufacturers to meet demand; e.g., washing manufacturers and
sewing factories, or cutting factories and dyeing companies. This network has the merit of being in the Kojima
cluster. See D. Fujii, et al., ‘Sanchi Ryoku no Jizoku Mechanism no Tankyu, Jeans Seihan Network no Field
Chosa (2) [Evolving Technical Capabilities in Turmoil: A Field Research on The Value Chain Network of
Denim Jeans Industry in the Setouchi District (2)]’, Okayama Daigaku Keizai Gakkai Zasshi, 39(3), 2007.
However, specialty jeans manufacturers like Big John have seen a fall in their sales since the late 1990s, and
these small factories within the cluster have since depended on local energetic SMEs such as Japan Blue.
50
Documents provided by Japan Blue.
51
The Plaza Accord was an agreement between France, West Germany, Japan, the United States, and the United
Kingdom to depreciate the dollar in relation to the Japanese yen and German Mark. This agreement made
Japanese and German exports more expensive.
52
I. Koga, ‘Saikido suruka Jeans Casual Gyokai’, Jeans Casual Reader, 2012, 2012.
19
Kaihara pursued another strategy: providing low-price denim to Uniqlo from domestic
factories. Kaihara is still family controlled and has become the largest denim manufacturer in
Japan. It operates four vertically integrated mills in Japan, and opened a new factory in
Thailand in 2015. The company caters for more than fifty percent of the Japanese denim
market. It integrated its production process, moving from only dyeing factories to adding
textiles in 1978, finishing in 1980, and spinning factories in 1991. Indeed, it constructed its
business portfolio when it recognized that the jeans market was saturated as early as 1975.53
Although its target consumer price was lower, Uniqlo’s order was the driving force of
Kaihara’s expansion. Some well-known jeans companies were bought out and others went
bankrupt. Kaihara, however, expanded.
While established brands of jeans were suffering from the trend for cheaper products, fastfashion retailers like Uniqlo were increasing their sales with low prices. In 1998, Kaihara
decided to collaborate with Uniqlo, which soon became its biggest customer. In addition to
Uniqlo’s low prices (for example, twenty-five Euros for a pair of jeans and five Euros for a Tshirt), it also offered its customers technological innovations like stretch jeans, raised fabrics,
insulating textiles, and UV protective clothing. Kaihara did not want to get involved in price
wars with Chinese manufacturers, and so strived to respond to Uniqlo’s requirements for low
prices and innovations. The retail prices of Uniqlo jeans were low compared with branded
versions, but Kaihara could also provide Uniqlo with high quality denim at reasonable prices.
Uniqlo bought Kaihara’s denim at higher prices than it would pay Chinese manufacturers, but
the quality of the fabric was much better and so they could use it more efficiently with zero
waste in the cutting process. The Uniqlo and Kaihara collaboration was thus innovative, i.e.
launching low-priced jeans made from high-quality denim. 54 Kaihara continues to launch
about 800 kinds of new functional denim per year. It has the capacity to develop new
products, great reproducibility (lot-to-lot reproducibility), and an ability to use fabric
efficiently (less waste). The sales and profits of Kaihara and Uniqlo have risen, and so they
have succeeded in creating a win–win relationship.
J. Kaihara, ‘Top Interview Kaihara Junji; Kokunai Seisan ni Kodawari Sekai Kara Erabareru Denim Kigyo’,
SQUET, 253, 2011.
53
54
Zaikai Tsushin sha, ‘Koron Rerey Taizan’, Gekkan Koron, 47(8), 2014.
20
The competitiveness of Japanese denim and jeans manufacturers lies in their ability to
produce new materials rather than new designs. Kaihara, for example, created a new denim
fabric that it launched in stores within a year, and almost sixty per cent of its sales now come
from this. They have the advantage of creating innovations with new, mixed yarns in terms of
fit, comfort, and stretch, not only for blue denim, but also denim in different colors. One of
Kaihara’s counterstrategies was to set up a long-lasting collaboration with Uniqlo to produce
high-quality, but much cheaper, denim. One of the ways to do this was to use fully automated,
state-of-the-art manufacturing techniques and economies of scale. Kaihara has invested in
automation and robots. Its newest Sanwa mill in Jinseki-gun is 20,000m2 and can be run by
just 20 staff. In the early 1990s, the demand for vintage jeans rose, and the production of
vintage denim on old Toyoda looms therefore increased. Kaihara, copying other smaller
Japanese denim manufacturers, started to buy back old Toyoda looms, adapted them to
modern standards, and began to produce vintage denim. Currently, twenty per cent of
Kaihara’s sales are of products made on these vintage looms, meaning they amount to only a
minor part of Kaihara’s total output.55 The manufacture of vintage denim is the company’s
second counterstrategy in a highly competitive denim market, and vintage denim provides it
with a wonderful marketing tool. Its final counterstrategy is to offshore denim manufacturing
to a low-cost nation. In 2014, Kaihara thus invested $100 million in a new mill in Thailand,
thereby eventually following other Japanese denim manufacturers.56
Conclusion
The history of Japanese denim and jeans is as much a cultural as an economic story. Indeed,
it is impossible to understand this industry without acknowledging both. It was first a
demand-driven tale, but demand for denim and jeans rose due to the rapidly changing fashion
system in Japan. There is a long history of selective adaptation to Western-style clothes,
which began with the Meiji Restoration. The pace of change accelerated during the inter-war
period, and was completed in the post-war recovery during the 1950s. The demand for
traditional cotton products fell due to the transformation of the Japanese lifestyle and
55
Interview by Rika Fujioka and Ben Wubs with Kaihara’s CEO, Yoshiharu Kaihara, on 1 August 2015.
56
http://www.kaihara-denim.com/english/company/history.html (assessed 9-8-2016).
21
economic growth. Demand for denim and jeans increased in this period, initially under the
influence of American GIs. This ignited a second-hand market for US-made jeans, led to
greater imports of jeans and denim, and eventually, during the 1960s, to the first experiments
with Japanese-made denim.
The supply side, which became more important later on, also had a bearing on cultural factors
like Japan’s long history of producing high quality indigo cotton products like Kasuri. When
demand for traditional indigo-dyed cotton kimonos plummeted, manufacturers had to look for
other products. During the early 1970s, Kaihara switched to fully integrated denim
production, and was able to survive and even expand. The mentality and traditions of this
Japanese family firm matter. Concepts like path dependence and historical continuity can
partly explain its success over several decades and its evolution into the largest denim
manufacturer in Japan. This case-study fits perfectly well within the general pattern, as the
firm duly developed into the largest vertically integrated manufacturer of denim in Japan. The
location of Kaihara’s mills can thus be explained historically, as the Hiroshima Prefecture
had been one of the main Kasuri clusters.
It was, however, the close collaboration with Uniqlo, when the traditional market for denim
fell in the 1990s, which ignited a massive expansion of domestic production and the vertical
integration of Kaihara’s factories in the Hiroshima Prefecture. Since this collaboration, the
firm has focused, like Uniqlo, on the development of innovative fabrics rather than new
fashion styles, and aims to fight cut-throat competition on the global denim market. When
demand for vintage jeans rose in the early 1990s, and the production of vintage denim on old
Toyoda looms increased, Kaihara also started to buy these old looms back and produce
vintage denim. Simultaneously, the company invested in automation and robots, and most of
its denim is still made on state-of-the-art machines. Vintage denim is only a minor part of
Kaihara’s total production and sales. It is not only quality, but also quantity and economies of
scale that matter to the company. Indeed, the greater part of its production is based on high,
not low, tech.
Japan Blue is a completely different story of a completely different company. It does not
operate fully integrated plants, although it controls an entire supply chain of jeans
manufacturing in the Kojima cotton cluster in the Okayama Prefecture. Cotton production
goes back to the mid-Edo period, when land in Kojima was unsuitable for cultivating rice
22
because of its high salt content. As a result, the city became a cluster for the manufacture of
cotton garments, including kimonos, uniforms, and jeans. Although the history of Japanese
denim and jeans is not just based on manufacturing on old Toyoda machines, Japan Blue’s
founder and indigo fan Manabe began to use these old looms in 1993, when demand for
vintage denim increased. A year later, he began to use exclusive African cotton to produce a
high profile denim. He also experimented with natural indigo, and created his own blue color,
which he called Japan Blue. Japan Blue began as a vintage manufacturer in 2003, and
successfully set up several premium brands of jeans. Clearly, the company sold its high
quality vintage denim and jeans on a niche market where prices did not really matter. In this
way, Simmel entered the world of so-called egalitarian denim, in which ‘the upper classes
turn away from this style and adopt a new one, which in its turn differentiates them from the
masses.’57
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25