Momotaro Jeans

Momotaro Jeans was founded in 2006 in Kojima, Okayama by Hisao Manabe as a small Japanese-denim manufacturer specifically focused on producing technically-engineered heavyweight selvedge denim using traditional Japanese-shuttle-loom-and-natural-indigo-dyeing construction. The brand has been one of the defining post-2006 Japanese-denim brands operating from the broader Kojima-denim-region cultural-and-craft-anchor — Momotaro Jeans is named after the Japanese folktale character Momotarō (the 'Peach Boy' folk hero) and the brand has incorporated traditional Momotarō folk-iconography throughout its product line. The Momotaro Jeans vocabulary settled around several specific products: the iconic Momotaro 0701 'Going to Battle' deliberately-natural-indigo-dyed selvedge denim (the brand's defining product since 2006 — a heavyweight selvedge denim with the iconic Momotaro pink-and-white battle-line side stripes), various heavyweight selvedge denim variants in shifting weights and constructions, the iconic Momotaro hand-natural-indigo-dyed garment-dyed product programme, hand-finished chambray and herringbone work-shirts, and a colour palette anchored to natural-indigo (the brand's defining colour — multiple depth variations from light indigo through near-black), washed-cream, oxblood, ecru, plus the brand's recurring use of natural-undyed and traditional-Japanese-Kojima-denim-aesthetic colour combinations. Production is entirely Japanese at the Kojima factory. The brand is independent and held by Manabe. Momotaro Jeans operates flagship retail in Kojima (the brand's home factory shop — Kojima is widely considered the birthplace of Japanese-denim and Momotaro is one of the defining Kojima-anchored brands), Tokyo (Daikanyama, Aoyama), Osaka, plus international wholesale through Self Edge (the long-running US Japanese-denim specialty retailer), Iron Heart UK, Cultizm, Blue Owl Workshop, Stag NY, Brut Clothing, and a curated set of heritage-menswear specialty retailers globally. The brand has been one of the most rigorously committed post-2006 Japanese-denim-Kojima brands.