It's Better To Travel

After the devastation suffered by Japan last spring, I promised to visit the place, and inject some money into their economy. I've succeeded, I reckon. In the next few weeks, I plan to upload several stories on denim in Japan. I've learned a huge amount about the birth of the Osaka 5 - the group of jeans companies that put Japan on the map for premium denim - and also about the birth, and evolution, of the cotton spinning and weaving industry, which has left us with such a high-quality legacy of denim production. I'll also provide my own brief guide to denim shopping in Tokyo.

Here are just a few photos to hopefully whet your appetite.

Kurashiki - established as the centre of Japanese cotton spinning in 1888.

 Cotton from Zimbabwe, USA, and other location, in the Nihon Menpu warehouse. 

 Edo Ai-dyed yarns, after one to eight dips, at Nihon Menpu, Okayama Prefecture. 

Cotton ginning machine made by Platt Brothers of Oldham, installed at Kurabo - Kurashiki Spinning Mill - around 1915. 

Intriguingly, it was Platt Brothers who later produced the Toyoda Type G automatic loom under licence in the UK. 

The old Kurabo cotton warehouse, Kurashiki. 

Interior of RHRB - named after JD Salinger's novella,  Raise High The Roof Beam, Carpenters.

Toyoda loom - from the 1920s? - in the Evisu showroom at Daikanyama. It's incomplete, but I believe this is one of the celebrated G-series looms that put the Toyoda - now Toyota - company on the map. 

Hinoya Plus Mart, Ueno

45rpm store, Shibuya