Kojima Jeans Street 児島ジーンズストリート
Japan's first jeans were made here in 1965, by people who had previously sewn school uniforms.
Kojima had been making school uniforms, work clothes and tabi (Japanese two-toed socks) since the Edo period; after 1963 demand for school uniforms fell, and local manufacturers, starting with Maruo Seiyū (now Big John), put their textile experience to new use, sewing jeans from imported American denim for the first time in Japan, in 1965. Since then Kojima has become ‘the birthplace of Japanese jeans’.
Okayama
Kojima
