I found this narrative about how pivotal this one moment in the 60's and the centrality of preppy fashion to be more than a little forced. And some parts bordered on misleading like:
> The Japanese helped fetishize vintage Levi’s in the 1990s, just as Americans were chopping them off to make jorts. Then, when the clothes they wanted became too expensive, the Japanese started making their own selvedge denim,
I picked up 2 pairs of Edwin jeans last month in Japan, they're great but the company has been making jeans since the 50's and using high quality selvedge denim since the early 60's.
From everything I have researched, Edwin appears to have fudged their timeline quite a bit, claiming to do a lot of things years before there's any proof that any Japanese makers were doing it. I wrote something here about trying to reconstruct the exact timeline: http://www.heddels.com/2015/10/who-made-japans-first-jeans/
They may have imported some (low quality) selvedge denim in the 1960s because a lot of denim was still selvedge (at least on one side of the cuff), but no one made the slubby, selvedge denim Japan is famous for in any sort of serious quantity until the late-1980s. No Japanese companies made jeans-grade denim at all until 1973.
This reminded me of this story I read on HN which also talks about how Japan refined American culture: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7580032. Very interesting subject, especially with regards to how we equate foreign with hip, and how the old becomes new again.
Articles behind paywalls are ok as long as the paywall has a workaround. Comments helping people read an article are ok. Generic paywall complaints are off topic.
[+] [-] Steko|10 years ago|reply
> The Japanese helped fetishize vintage Levi’s in the 1990s, just as Americans were chopping them off to make jorts. Then, when the clothes they wanted became too expensive, the Japanese started making their own selvedge denim,
I picked up 2 pairs of Edwin jeans last month in Japan, they're great but the company has been making jeans since the 50's and using high quality selvedge denim since the early 60's.
[+] [-] wdavidmarxy|10 years ago|reply
From everything I have researched, Edwin appears to have fudged their timeline quite a bit, claiming to do a lot of things years before there's any proof that any Japanese makers were doing it. I wrote something here about trying to reconstruct the exact timeline: http://www.heddels.com/2015/10/who-made-japans-first-jeans/
They may have imported some (low quality) selvedge denim in the 1960s because a lot of denim was still selvedge (at least on one side of the cuff), but no one made the slubby, selvedge denim Japan is famous for in any sort of serious quantity until the late-1980s. No Japanese companies made jeans-grade denim at all until 1973.
[+] [-] cooper12|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gkanai|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bigbugbag|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] satuim|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cLeEOGPw|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dang|10 years ago|reply
Articles behind paywalls are ok as long as the paywall has a workaround. Comments helping people read an article are ok. Generic paywall complaints are off topic.
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]